Above is the site and building outlined on the 1943 OS map. The earthworks marked around and under the site are clear on OS maps since the first edition here in 1887. Although the site has the former James Bridge Colliery close by to the south it looks from the various tracks marked on maps that these workings are associated with the Bradford Colliery reached by bridges over the Sneyd Brook and Anson Branch Canal.
The Earl of Bradford invested heavily and bravely (or carelessly depending upon your point of view) in mining on his land including here in the Walsall area... 'despite serious debts [he] initiated an expansionist policy and soldiered on regardless'. In a 50-year period around the mid-nineteenth century his estate realised over £60,000 from mineral royalties.
Workings in this area were for coal, limestone, ironstone and brick clay.
A brief aside: according to a New Scientist article by Chris Howes (December 1989) about underground photography the earliest coal mining picture was taken at Bradford Colliery in 1865.
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