IT'S quite mind boggling to learn that a little coalpit, tucked away in a corner of the St Helens district, once provided the lion's share of fuel for the Royal Navy during steam-powered times when Britain could justly claim to 'rule the waves.'

The reason was that the long-gone Rushy Park colliery at the top of Islands Brow, Haresfinch, turned out superior coal. Its excellent 4ft. Rushy Park seam, along with the 3ft. Little Delf, occurred close to the surface.

This fascinating info is supplied by our highly-reliable chum, Kevin Heneghan, retired teacher and lecturer who is fascinated by local history.

He's responding to a query on this page, raised by Moss Bank Debating and Walking Stick Society who had been puzzling over the name of Rushy Park, spotted on an old map of the area.

The colliery site, now engulfed by the massive Burgie Banks industrial spoilheaps, was close to where the St Helens to Wigan railway line, opened in 1870, still runs. Five years after that date, a lease of the mine fixed the annual rental at £252. In 1801, a group of salt proprietors and merchants purchased a 30-year lease on the mine, the high price of coal and the guaranteed market enjoyed by St Helens coal-owners having tempted the salt boilers to acquire pits of their own.

In the 1830s Rushy Park was being run by Bromilow & Sothern. And by 1837, the company was sending more than 23,000 tons a year (gained by pick, shovel and sweat of the brow) to Liverpool for steam vessels.

But then, what smacks of shady business crept in and a year later Lt-Cmdr John Philipps of the Royal Navy complained that the coal "is so very bad that the engineers find it impossible to keep up steam." Unless there was an improvement, payment would not be forthcoming!

Clearly the pit owners were mixing inferior coal with that from Rushy Park and Little Delf seams.

There must have been an improvement, because by 1840-3 they were supplying the Navy with 16,000 tons a year - the largest single consignment to any naval establishment, home or abroad.

"Coal outcropped all over the fields now covered by housing between Rushy Park site and Chain Lane," adds Kevin. "Local colliers mined it at New Glade Hill during the 1926 strike and used a shotgun to drive off raiders from Gerards Bridge."

And, looking back to his youth, Kevin recalls that Mr Moncrieff of Laffak Farm dug his own private mine in the middle of a once-immaculate front lawn.

"Alas, the Coal Board got wind of his enterprise and came down on him for royalties."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.