Nuneaton & Bedworth Coal, Stone, Clay and Iron

On the edge of the Warwickshire coalfield, coal had been mined in Nuneaton since the fourteenth century and the town was a centre for quarrying and brick-making too. Coal had been mined in the Stockingford and Griff area of Chilvers Coton for five centuries, and by the mid-1860s, new capital, increasingly efficient mining methods, together with the building of the railways, brought about a golden bonanza of coal production in this area of Warwickshire. The building of railways and roads generated the need for good stone, and Nuneaton had plenty of that too. The town was also blessed with beds of the finest brick clay in the country. Entrepreneurs took over old brick kilns, modernised them, and created the opportunity for their products to be shipped countrywide. Nowadays, the collieries and brickworks have gone and quarrying has declined as the quarries have become worked out. Local historian Peter Lee tells the story of these lost industries of Nuneaton and Bedworth using both words and pictures to show the reader just how important these industries once were.