 By the end of the 19th century the colliery site had become crowded, and included a brickworks that used fireclay and shale spoil from the pit. It was surrounded by housing and factories in what was one of the most industrial parts of Manchester. The ready supply of coal encouraged the development of Manchester's chemical industry around the colliery and in the northeast of the city generally. A factory producing carbolic acid from coal tar was established in 1857, and sulphuric acid and naphthalene were produced from 1865 in nearby Blackley, later the site of ICI's Dyestuff's Division.
