A town built on coal

Do you know what whale oil smells like? If the answer to that is “no” then I cannot urge you strongly enough to maintain that position. If the answer is “yes”, then you’ll surely second that.
Whale oil?

High on the plateau overlooking Westport from the north, is what’s left of the town of Denniston, once a thriving community and now home to fewer than 10 people.

The town existed for one purpose only – the extraction of high-grade coal from the hills around the town. The main problem was access – getting miners up to the mines and getting the coal back down to sea-level again. To solve this problem, the Denniston incline was built – essentially a funicular railway where the coal carts were attached to a rope wound round a pulley so that the descending, full carts pulled the empty carts back up the hill. Although not officially sanctioned, it was common for people and goods to ride up in the “empty” carts. In some cases, the experience was so terrifying that the individuals involved refused to travel down again and just stayed up in Denniston. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the incline, known locally as the eight wonder of the world, was designed by Scottish engineers.

Eventually, a path was built which allowed for a safer route up and down for pedestrians and horses. Later still, a track suitable for vehicles was constructed which quickly led to the death of the town itself. Once it was possible to get to and from work easily without actually living on the plateau, the miners and their families moved out in droves to live down at sea-level. Quickly, the town vanished leaving only the mine buildings still in use.

Today, very little remains of the old village – the camp as it was called, as, originally, that’s exactly what it was. A few foundations, some overgrown paths, but little else. Life was harsh in Denniston. The weather was highly changeable and often foul. Thick fogs would last for days. Eventually, people just didn’t want to put up with it anymore. Whilst waiting at the beginning of the tour, and having found out that I’m Scottish, the guide mentioned that he’d seen a programme about the Hebrides on TV (I think it’s the one narrated by Ewan McGregor) which had included a segment on the evacuation of St Kilda. Without meaning to, he’d put his finger on a similarity – the St Kilda islanders eventually had had enough of putting up with life there and asked to leave.

Today, the Denniston Experience has been created to allow visitors once again to enter one of the mines and to learn something of the life of a miner. Unfortunately, coal mines do not lend themselves to photography so the pictures are poor.

Outside, though, much of the old industrial infrastructure is still there, albeit heavily rusted. There is much to see, but it’s best to try to see it in sunshine…

Overlooking the top of the incline, this area was used for marshalling coal trucks before or after descent:

In the background (and a long way below) you can see the Waimangaroa River reaching the sea. The top of the incline itself is at the top-right corner of the yard.

There were, in fact, several mines in the Denniston area. The tour takes visitors into the Banbury Mine – the first to be opened up, in 1879, which is down off the bottom-right corner of the first picture in a straightish line from the top of the incline. The track ran over these arches to the mine entrance itself:

The arches were constructed by Cornish stone masons and contain no mortar of any kind.

The tour starts on a little train which runs along the original track over those arches and into the mine itself, just off the left of the picture. The Banbury mine eventually worked its way right through the hill and out the other side. After it was worked out, it was left open as a tunnel to allow access to new mines, both for getting miners in, and for getting coal out. A continuous ropeway was created to pull the loaded carts through the mine but this proved unreliable and it was later replaced with an aerial ropeway over the top of the hill.

 

For the purposes of the tour, each member of the party was assigned a role – union leader, hewer, shot firer, etc. We were given our union cards, detailing rates of pay. For example, as a shot-firer, I would have received 2/6 per day (perhaps £50 today).

The actual miners – the hewers – were paid 3d per ton. To give you an idea, this cart:

holds about half a ton, so the 3d was for two of them. And the miners worked in pairs, splitting the money so that halves it again. I reckon it was three farthings to fill one of those carts with coal. And that was the sieved coal - the company only paid for reasonable sized lumps - the small pieces were either left in the mine or thrown over the side of the hill.

The miners worked in different areas of the mine in three-month blocks. Every three months, names would be drawn from a hat to see who’d be working where. In a bad area, you might be lying on your stomach all day and manage 5 or 6 tons. In a good area you’d have the luxury of kneeling and manage perhaps 15 tons.

In the course of your twelve-hour shift, there was no allowance for a lunch break. Instead miners would steal, or crib, some time. Perhaps whilst they were waiting for the shot firer. To this day, your packed lunch as a miner is called your “crib” and the meal break is the “crib break”. We “workers” on the tour were shown the sort of things miners might have had in their crib.

As a time when miners were gathered together, the crib break was often used to discuss union matters. The tour includes a mock union meeting as well as a holographic projection of a ghostly miner of yore telling us of a mine disaster.

When sitting eating their crib, the most common form of lighting was a little lantern powered by, yes, whale oil. Having smelt it raw, I can only imagine the stench in the mine when those lanterns were burning the stuff…

The company controlled every aspect of the miners’ lives. Nothing could go up the hill unless it went up the incline – the company refused to help in the construction of the alternative paths. You spent your money in company-owned shops and pubs. Eventually a union was established to campaign for better conditions and wages. They also campaigned for proper regulation of who was allowed to work in the mine – the company essentially pulled people in off the streets who knew nothing of mining and were often dangerous to be around.

One group who were not welcome as miners were dangerous people such as Methodists who, it was feared, would foment unrest and create a demand for a stronger union.

It’s easy to romanticise the old workings, but life as a miner was tough. You’d be unlikely to work beyond the age of 40 and unlikely to live much longer than that in retirement. There was nothing in the way of social security – the nearest doctor was in Westport, many hours away. So, yes, the old, rusted bits of iron might conjure up a “days-of-yore” type image, but working at Denniston would have been hell. There’s no two ways about it.

There is still coal mined on the plateau – the Stockton mine is an open cast mine. The coal still goes down to Westport (by road) but it's shipped out by rail now, rather than sea. There is pressure to allow more mining still, but these days the environmental lobby is fighting the proposal. It is, of course, a question of steering between the economic benefit and the environmental cost.

The road to Denniston is definitely a challenge. At one point, I found myself dropping to first gear – I can’t recall ever having done that before. You do, though, get spectacular views as you go up. This is Westport – on the spit of land in the middle distance on the right-hand side of the picture.

  

The large body of water just this side of the town is the Orowaiti River at high tide. The Buller River, after which the whole area is named, is on the far side and not really visible.

I travelled up to Denniston twice - not wanting to risk the weather on the Sunday, I went up on Saturday afternoon as well as the sun was splitting the skies. There were a few clouds when I arrived for the tour, but, during the time we were in the mine, it went from sunny to rainy, so I'm glad I went the day before as well. This is what the valley looked like on the way down the second time.

This was the sort of fog that could last for days up on the plateau.

Finally, on the way out of town, I spotted (admittedly with some prompting) a woodpile outside someone’s house. I only know one person with a woodpile, but I know nobody with a woodpile like this one: