16. Main Boiler House

The production of high-pressure steam at Chatterley Whitfield was centralised in 1938 with the construction of the main boiler house in an area that was previously occupied by mechanical, electrical and woodworking shops. Prior to its construction, steam was raised in twenty-one, hand-fired boilers located across the colliery site. The mid-twentieth century boiler house contained ten Lancashire boilers which were operated by an automatic pulverised fuel-feeding system since fine pulverised coal was renowned for its efficiency. The dust was retrieved from the screening plant (demolished late C20) and was carried via an overhead conveyor to the boiler house where it was continually blown into the boilers. High-pressure steam was fed directly from the boiler house to the colliery's steam-winding engines and to the compressors in the Hesketh power house, while some of the low-pressure steam provided heat to some buildings, including the pithead baths and the offices. In the late-twentieth century two of the boilers were adapted to burn the methane that was present in the coal seams, while the rest were run on coal. The boiler house remained in operation until the closure of the colliery. When the liquidators moved in 1992/93, the roof of the boiler house was removed so that the boilers could be sold off for scrap. In the event, the boilers themselves were saved, but the roof was not replaced, and the upper part of the building demolished as a safety precaution, resulting in the currently high state of the decay of this building. Listed: Grade II.