page_title: Ram Hill
section_title: Coal mines
hierarchical_section_title: Ram Hill / Industrial archaeology / Coal mines
caption_attribution_description: The remains of Ram Hill Colliery, Coalpit Heath, Bristol.
context_page_description: Ram Hill is a hamlet in South Gloucestershire, England. It is located between Coalpit Heath and Westerleigh and adjoins the hamlet of Henfield immediately to the south. In the Mudge Map 1815, Ram Hill was known as Nutridge Hill, and was linked to Westerleigh by Broad Lane and to Mays Hill by Frog Lane.
  Ram Hill is a small hamlet that has seen considerable land use change over the recent centuries moving from a traditional agricultural landscape to an active coal mining area by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The population would have increased at that time supported by the introduction of new miner's cottages by the Coalpit Heath Colliery Company.
  The closure of Ram Hill Colliery and Churchleaze Pits in the 1860s represented change but the new branch line to the Frog Lane Pit along with the movement of labour to the pit and the nearby Parkfield Colliery would have ensured that the industrial nature of the area was maintained to well into the twentieth century. In 1903 the new Great Western Railway direct route from Badminton to South Wales and the railway sidings at Coalpit Heath Railway Station would also have had an impact.
context_section_description: Ram Hill is situated near the centre of the North Bristol Coal Field, this area at one time having been a coal mining community. Coal had been mined in this area since the fourteenth century and most likely even earlier. However it was Sir Samuel Astry, Lord of the Manor of Westerleigh c1680 who started mining on a grander scale and his descendants, or their business partners, continued to be connected with the Coalpit Heath Colliery Company.
  Within Ram Hill itself there were four mines operational in the early nineteenth century:
  Ram Hill Engine Pit was an older pit that lay 300 yards downhill to the west of the Ram Hill Colliery. The pit shaft had a depth of 510 ft and the 1772 map records that an early pumping beam engine operated in the pit. According to MJH Southway (1971) the engine at this site had a 7 ft stroke, working 8 strokes per minute and raising 28 gallons per stroke by means of an 11" pump lifting 224 gallons per minute.
  Ram Hill Colliery site lies beside the London to South Wales rail line and stands on British Rail land near the Ha' Penny Bridge.  The pit was 558 ft deep and was abandoned around 1860. A number of remains are discernible on the ground including the horse gin, the shaft and the tramway lines finishing at an arch. In 2006 the Ram Hill Colliery site was designated by English Heritage as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
  Churchleaze No. 1 Pit lay beside the Dramway where it crosses Serridge Lane (previously known as Churchleaze).  The mine site was clearly visible in the 1960s but was "tidied up" by a local farmer and now apart from a declivity in the ground no traces of the pit remain.
  Churchleaze No. 2 Pit lay to the south of Pit No. 1, adjoining Henfield Road.
  For the nearby Serridge Engine Pit, Orchard (or Middle Wimsey) Pit, No. 11 Pit and New Engine Pit see Henfield.
  The underground map of around 1850 shows that the underground roads of the Ram Hill Colliery and Churchleaze pits on Ram Hill joined together with those of the Serridge Engine and New Engine pits in Henfield.
caption: Site of Ram Hill Colliery
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