First posted at Waterton’s Walton.
This film shows the unveiling and dedication of the Walton Colliery Memorial Wheel. It was a rather wet day, but the event was well attended – there must have been a turn out of at least 250 people.
The wheel was donated by Norman Parkinson who had been working towards the installation of a winding wheel for quite some time. Other sites of mining activity in the area had wheels to represent their mining past, and Walton, to the disappointment of many who worked at the pit, did not have one. This omission has now been put right thanks to organisations such as Working for Walton, and the Friends of Walton Colliery Nature Reserve as well as other individuals, groups and organisations from the local area.
Many of the winding wheel monuments in the area are in the form of large half circles. The Walton wheel is quite different and smaller. This sort of wheel was called ‘emergency winding pully wheels’. I personally think that this more subtle and understated wheel is better suited to Walton.
A pit’s winding gear was used to transport men and equipment to and from the pit face and to take the mined coal as well as waste materials to the surface. Such wheels were therefore central components of the mining operations and therefore have great symbolic significance for mining, miners and mining communities.
The event was introduced by the Chair of Working for Walton – Mark Blount. Trevor Chalkley of the National Mining Museum then gave an interesting and informative account of the history of mining on the site. This was followed by the dedication and blessing of the monument by The Revd Rupert Martin. The formal unveiling was carried out by former Walton Colliery miner Terry Lloyd. Closing remarks were then given by Mayor of Wakefield Charles Keith. There was also music from Crofton Silver Band.
It is rather fitting that that the Walton Pit site is now a nature reserve as the world’s first nature reserve was set up in Walton by naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton who lived at nearby Walton Hall. I tend to think of Walton as the village where nature and industry first converged when Charles Waterton did some of the earliest work on environmentalism and deep ecology during the Industrial Revolution. This work is now highly topical and of great contemporary relevance.
cjknowles1972 