The Hill Top Colliery in Sharneyford between Bacup and Todmorden was, until 2014, the last coal mine still in operation in Lancashire.
The cart of the winch-operated inclinehad flangeless metal disc wheels and were also used for passenger transport, because of the low height of the drifts.
In less than 20 years they have produced 400 tons of coal per week before the mighty Union seam was exhausted in 1966.
They pumped just over 1,000 liters (250 gallons) per minute out of the Hill Top Colliery and across the watershed of the Heald Moor into the Irwell Valley and not via the Greens Clough into the Yorkshire Calder, which would have been the far cheaper alternative.
In the summer of 1997 two drifts were dug into the large seam between the previous tunnels and an open pit mine on the Heald Moor.
[9] Billy Clayton died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 16 May 2008, when he brought his grandson back from school.