Fletcher, Burrows and Company

The Fletchers built company housing at Hindsford and a model village at Howe Bridge which included pithead baths and a social club for its workers.

[3] The Fletchers had mining interests in Bolton and Clifton in the Irwell Valley from Elizabethan times.

Matthew Fletcher's family owned most of Clifton in 1750[4] including the Ladyshore and Wet Earth collieries.

[6] The company developed the Howe Bridge Collieries and sank three shafts in the 1840s when James Fletcher was the manager.

The family acquired land and property in Atherton and between 1867 and 1878 Ralph Fletcher controlled the business.

[11] The company was a supporter in setting up the first Mines Rescue Station in Lancashire at Howe Bridge in 1908.

Colliers who worked for the Fletchers were entitled to free ale at the end of their shifts at the Wheatsheaf.

[17] Gibfield Colliery's origins are in a shaft sunk to the Trencherbone mine in 1829 next to the Bolton and Leigh Railway line which opened in 1830.

[16] Chanters Colliery in Hindsford was sunk in 1854 in an area where coal had been mined for centuries from small pits.

[21] Coal screens and a washery were built, and steel headgear and a new winding engine installed by 1904.

[24] After 1830 Lovers Lane colliery was connected to the Bolton and Leigh Railway at Fletchers sidings north of Atherleigh.

[25] The Fletchers built a tramroad to a landsale yard at Stock Platt Bridge in Leigh where their coal was sold.

[32] Two saddle tank locomotives, Carbon a 0-4-0 in 1920, and in 1923 Chowbent a 0-6-0 were bought from Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. in Kilmarnock.