Location of Mines

The earliest know map of Coppull was made in 1736 when the commons and waste of Coppull were enclosed. There are no known copies of this map although there are references to it in several documents.

The first map of part of Coppull which still survives is a plan of the estate of James Hammerton from 1772. Hammerton married the heiress of the Chisnall family.

The map shows a number of features suggesting that mining had taken place including the following:

The plan suggests that Hammerton was intending to develop coal mining commercially because it shows the intended course of the mine and identified the most attractive seams of coal.

By the time of the first Ordnance Survey map in the 1840s shortly after the arrival of the railways, coal was being mined commercially in Coppull. Coppull Colliery was served by its own smithy and also was linked by a service line to the main Wigan to Preston railway line.

The evidence of this map is of mining activity at the east and western fringes of the village, near Duxbury and Burgh in the east, and at Chisnall in the west.