Radstock
Radstock is a town and civil parish on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England, about south-west of Bath and north-west of Frome. It is within the area of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset. The Radstock built-up area had a population of 9,419 at the 2011 Census.
Radstock has been settled since the Iron Age, and its importance grew after the construction of the Fosse Way, a Roman road. The town grew after 1763, when coal was discovered in the area. Large numbers of mines opened during the 19th century, including several owned by the Waldegrave family, who had been Lords of the Manor since the Civil War. Admiral Lord Radstock, brother of George, fourth Earl Waldegrave, took the town's name as his title when created a Baron.
The spoil heap of Writhlington colliery is now the Writhlington Site of Special Scientific Interest, which includes 3,000 tons of Upper Carboniferous spoil from which more than 1,400 insect fossil specimens have been recovered. The complex geology and narrow seams made coal extraction difficult. Tonnage increased throughout the 19th century, reaching a peak around 1901, when there were 79 separate collieries and annual production was 1,250,000 tons per annum. However, due to local geological difficulties and manpower shortages, output declined and the number of pits reduced from 30 at the beginning of the 20th century to 14 by the mid-thirties; the last two pits, Kilmersdon and Writhlington, closed in September 1973. Manufacturing industries such as printing, binding and packaging provide some local employment. In recent years, Radstock has increasingly become a commuter town for the cities of Bath and Bristol.
Radstock is home to the Radstock Museum which is housed in a former market hall, and has a range of exhibits which offer an insight into north-east Somerset life since the 19th century. Many of the exhibits relate to local geology and the now disused Somerset coalfield. The town is also home to Writhlington School, famous for its Orchid collection, and a range of educational, religious and cultural buildings and sporting clubs.
History
Radstock has been settled since the Iron Age. Its importance grew with the construction of the Fosse Way, the Roman road that ran along what is now part of the A367 in Radstock. As a result, the town was known as Stoche at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, meaning the stockade by the Roman road, from the Old English stoc. The rad part of the name is believed to relate to red; the soil locally is reddish marl. The parish of Radstock was part of the Kilmersdon Hundred,The Great Western Railway, and the Somerset and Dorset Railway, established stations and marshalling yards in the town. Radstock was the terminus for the southern branch of the Somerset Coal Canal, which was turned into a tramway in 1815. It then became a central point for railway development, with large coal depots, wash houses, workshops and a gas works. As part of the development of the Wiltshire, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, an line from Radstock to Frome was built to carry the coal. In the 1870s the broad-gauge line was converted to standard gauge and connected to the Bristol and North Somerset Line which linked the town to the Great Western Railway. The Radstock Railway Land covers the old marshalling yards and sheds and comprises an area of approximately 8.8 hectares of land which is the subject of ongoing planning and development applications to redevelop the area.
The town is close to the site of the Radstock rail accident, a rail crash that took place on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, on 7 August 1876. Two trains collided on a single track section, resulting in the deaths of 15 passengers.
The last passenger train services in Radstock closed in 1966, and the last coal mines closed in 1973. Manufacturing industries such as printing, binding and packaging provide some local employment. More recently Radstock has become a commuter town for the nearby cities of Bath and Bristol, leading to traffic problems at peak hours.
Coal mining
In 1763, coal was discovered in Radstock and mining began in the area. In, 1896 the pits were owned by the Trustee of Frances, late Countess of Waldegrave. The Waldegrave family had been Lords of the Manor of Radstock since the English Civil War. Between 1800 and 1850, Ludlows, Middle Pit, Old Pit, Smallcombe, Tynings, and Wellsway mines opened. There were also a series of pits east of the town at Writhlington and under different ownership. In 1896, they were owned by Writhlington, Huish and Foxcote Colliery Co.; however, following an acrimonious dispute about the terms and conditions of the miners in 1899, a new company, Writhlington Collieries Co., was set up to run the mines. The Upper and Lower Writhlington, Huish and Foxcote were all merged into one colliery. The spoil heap is a now Writhlington Site of Special Scientific Interest. The site and includes 3,000 tons of Upper Carboniferous spoil from which more than 1,400 insect fossils have been recovered. These include Phalangiotarbida, and Graeophonus. and the world's earliest known Damselfly. It is a Geological Conservation Review Site.The complex geology and narrow seams made the coal extraction difficult; three underground explosions, in 1893, 1895 and 1908, were amongst the first attributable solely to airborne coal dust.
Tonnage increased throughout the 19th century, reaching a peak around 1901, when there were 79 separate collieries and annual production was 1.25 million tons per annum. However, due to local geological difficulties and manpower shortages, decline soon took hold and the number of pits reduced from 30 at the beginning of the 20th century to 14 by the mid-thirties, 12 at nationalisation to create National Coal Board on 1 January 1947, 5 by 1959 and none after 1973. Narrow seams made production expensive, limiting profit and investment, and a reduced national demand together with competition from more economical coalfields led to the closure of the last two pits in the coalfield, Kilmersdon and Writhlington, in September 1973.
Governance
In 2011, Radstock gained a town council. Until then, the town was part of the Norton Radstock civil parish, which was created in 1974 as a successor to the Norton-Radstock Urban District, itself created in 1933 by the merger of Midsomer Norton and Radstock urban districts, along with part of Frome Rural District. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it became a successor parish to the urban district.Radstock is administered by the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset and by Radstock Town Council.
The area is within the Frome and East Somerset UK Parliament constituency. Prior to Brexit in 2020, it was in the South West England constituency of the European Parliament.
Geography
The main geological feature in this area of the Mendip Hills south of Hallatrow consists of Supra-Pennant Measures which includes the upper coal measures and outcrops of sandstone. The southern part of the Radstock Syncline have coals of the Lower and Middle Coal Measures been worked, mainly at the Newbury and Vobster collieries in the southeast and in the New Rock and Moorewood pits to the southwest. The Hercynian orogeny caused shock waves in the rock as the Mendip Hills were pushed up, forcing the coal measures to break along fractures or faults. Along the Radstock Slide Fault the distance between the broken ends of a coal seam can be as much as.Radstock lies on the Wellow Brook which then runs through Wellow to join the Cam Brook at Midford to form Midford Brook before joining the River Avon close to the Dundas Aqueduct and the remains of the Somerset Coal Canal. The base of the valley is of alluvium deposits. Above this on both sides of all of the valley is a band of shales and clays from the Penarth Group. These rocks are from the Triassic period. The majority of the remaining upland around Radstock is Lias Limestone while the very highest part above 130 m, south of Haydon, is a small outcrop of Inferior Oolitic Limestone. All these limestones are from the Jurassic period. The steepest slopes of both the Kilmersdon and Snail's Bottom valleys have frequently slipped. Below all of the area is the coal bearing Carboniferous strata. Haydon is an outlier of Radstock and was built to house the miners for the local pit. The disused railway line and inclined railway at Haydon form important elements within the Kilmersdon valley east of Haydon. The modern landscape has a less maintained and "rougher" character and texture than neighbouring agricultural areas. This is caused in the main by the remnants of the coal industry and its infrastructure and changes in agricultural management. The disturbance caused by coal mining and the railways and the subsequent ending of mining and disuse of the railways has created valuable habitats of nature conservation interest.
Along with the rest of South West England, Radstock has a temperate climate, which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of England. The annual mean temperature is about 10 °C with seasonal and diurnal variations, but because of the modifying effect of the sea, the range is less than in most other parts of the United Kingdom. January is the coldest month, with mean minimum temperatures between 1 °C and 2 °C. July and August are the warmest months in the region, with mean daily maxima around 21 °C. In general, December is the dullest month and June the sunniest. The southwest of England enjoys a favoured location, particularly in summer, when the Azores High extends its influence north-eastwards towards the UK.
Cloud often forms inland, especially near hills, and reduces exposure to sunshine. The average annual sunshine is about 1,600 hours. Rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower clouds, and a large proportion of the annual precipitation falls from showers and thunderstorms at that time of year. Average rainfall is 800–900 mm. About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August having the lightest. The predominant wind direction is from the southwest.