SIX young children have narrowly escaped plummeting down a quarter-mile deep pit shaft.

Horrified Marie Hope's six grandchildren had been playing in the garden of her Leigh council house where a three metre hole suddenly appeared.

"It's frightening to think what could have happened," said Marie, surveying the scene outside her Melrose Avenue home on the Abbey Lane estate in Westleigh.

Her grandchildren Ebony Jane 3, Ben 4, Jordan 7, Becky 7, Sammy-Jo 9 and 11 year-old Sean had been playing in a paddling pool.

Marie and her friend, Terry Coleman, sensed something unusual when the big, 300 gallon pool was emptied and the water rushed away with a gurgling sound.

Then a van parked alongside the house began to sink.

The Council were alerted, experts brought in and the old, brick shored mineshaft discovered a smack in the middle of Marie's side garden.

On site experts who have bored test holes to 280 metres said the shaft could be bricked down to 400 metres. The shaft will be secured and filled from 120 metres back to ground level.

"I'm thankful the shaft has been found and nobody has been hurt. But I didn't want to move. I'm hoping to buy it from the Council and will be happy to do so once the work has been done," said Marie.

A nearby resident claimed builders must have known about the shaft when the house was built because a drainage pipe ran in to it.

Coal industry expert Alan Davies of the Lancashire Mining Museum said the shaft could possibly have been connected with either the Pickley Heys or Blackcroft pits which were working the Abbey Lane area in the early 1800s.

He told The Journal: "There are 16 registered shafts in a 400 yard band in the Abbey Lane area.

"It was a heavily faulted area with lots of shafts working pockets of coal separated by the faults.

"There have been an increasing number of incidences of old shafts appearing.

"With pumping no longer taking place due to all the collieries closing it is anybody's guess as to just how high water levels have risen.

"Water in old workings might lead to problems like this.

"There is some concern levels could rise high enough to affect drinking water and it may be at some time huge pumps will be necessary in the Lancashire coalfield."

A Council spokesman said geological experts were investigating and the problem would be rectified with public safety of paramount importance.

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