Windmill End Pit No. 3, 1830-1887.
The Windmill End No. 3 Pit was sunk around 1830, probably by the Earl of Dudley, and had a water pumping engine installed about 1831. This was succeeded in about 1836 by Cobb’s engine house, which stopped working in the early 1920s due to a series of miners’ strikes that led to the general strike of 1926, after which it could not cope with the subsequent flooding, and the mines were abandoned. It is possibly named after a farmer who owned land in the area before its construction, and there was a track here called Cobb’s Lane shown on a map of 1821. Housed in the building was a Watt-type steam-pumping beam engine which extracted water from the deep coal mines below and returned it to the canal by a system of culverts; it closed around 1925, and the plant and buildings remained until the pumping engine was bought in 1928 by Henry Ford and removed to his industrial museum in Michigan U.S.A. The engine house was renovated in the 1970’s and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Return over the bridge and retrace the route down the wide gritted path for about 200 m. to its junction with the original approach path on the right. Continue ahead on the main path, and look left for some old railway sleepers at ground level forming a water channel, beyond which is Boshboil Pool.
Norm's Audio Trails 