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Coordinates: 52°43'01?N 1°22'12?W? / ?52.717, -1.37
Coalville is a town in North West Leicestershire, England, with a population of about 30,000. It is just off junction 22 of the M1 motorway and is between Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Leicester. Coalville is the administrative centre for North-West Leicestershire District Council.
[edit] History
As the name indicates, Coalville is a former coal-mining town, with name coming from the name of the house of the owner of Whitwick Colliery, Coalville House. Coal has been mined in the area since medieval times and mine workings from these times can be found on the Hough Mill site at Swannington near the Califat Colliery site. A lifesized horse gin has been built on the Hough Mill site and craters can be seen in the ground, where the medieval villagers dug out their allocation of coal. The seam is at ground level in Swannington, but gradually gets deeper between Swannington and the deepest reserves at Bagworth, so consequentially, it was not until mining technology advanced that shafts were sunk in Coalville. A disused colliery at Snibston has been regenerated into Snibston Discovery Park, a museum focused on transport, mining, and engineering.
The town grew up with the advent of coal mining and the sinking of shafts on the Snibston site by George Stephenson. Quarrying, textile and engineering industries, such as railway wagon production, grew in the town in the 19th century.
The Leicester and Swannington Railway opened in 1832 reaching Coalville in 1833 and had a small station at Long Lane (now Ashby Road) in Coalville - the first street in the town, which still has some of the original miners' cottages, which are next to the modern police station and opposite the sorting office. Snibston colliery opened in 1833.
The railway was extended to Burton upon Trent in 1845, placing Coalville on an important route between Burton and Leicester. Heavy coal traffic encouraged the construction of further railways linking Coalville to Nuneaton and Shepshed.
A fire underground at Whitwick colliery (now under the Morrisons supermarket) led to the deaths of 35 men in 1898.
In the 20th century the railways to Nuneaton and Shepshed were closed and dismantled. Passenger services were withdrawn from the Leicester - Burton line in September 1964, but it remains open for freight traffic.
Following the closure of the mines and the Palitoy factory in the 1980s, the town fell on hard times. Effort was put into regeneration and the Whitwick Business park now stands on top of the former Whitwick Colliery site. New business parks and industrial estates were constructed along the A511.
After 1993 there was an abortive plan to restore passenger trains on the Leicester-Burton line through Coalville as an extension of Leicestershire's Ivanhoe Line.
[edit] Dialect
Despite the mines being closed for some time, the old South Derbyshire dialect of the miners remains present in the local Coalville community. To those outside of Coalville, this local dialect often seems like another language and is in stark contrast to the remainder of Leicestershire accents. The use of the term 'duck' is made with endearment, often asking: "How are you mi duck?" and "'Ey-up mi duck". Words such as "snap" (packed lunch, used by miners because of the snap that the tin made when closed), "scran"(food) and "banjaxed" (broken) are used.
Words such as ee, found in short words is pronounced as two syllables, for example feet being ['fij??], sounding like "fee-yut" (and also in this case ending with a glottal stop).
The Coalville dialect shares many features with Yorkshire, such as the open a sound in "car" and "park" but different in the replacement of take and make with tek and mek.
Like the Leicester dialect, words with short vowels such as up and last have a northern pronunciation, whereas words with vowels such as down and road sound rather more like a south-eastern accent. The vowel sound at the end of words like border "borda" (and the name of the city) "leicesta" is also a distinctive feature.
[edit] Transport
Coalville is on the A511 trunk road between Leicester and Burton upon Trent. The town is also close the M1 motorway at junction 22 where the A511 meets the A50 to Leicester.
There are a number of bus services that run through Coalville with the majority run by Arriva Fox County, who have a depot in the town on Ashby Road. From Coalville, buses run to Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Burton-on-Trent, Hinckley and East Midlands Airport.
There is now no railway station in Coalville. The nearest passenger railway station is Loughborough, about eight miles north east of Coalville. There have been calls to open the between Burton - Leicester Line for passenger trains (the line is currently used for freight trains) as part of the Ivanhoe Line but so far there are no plans for this to happen.
[edit] Features of interest
The town has its own market and FE/HE College, Stephenson College, which operates approximately 800 different courses in both academic, vocational and industry specific subjects. The college has recently relocated from old mining college buildings in the centre of town to new buildings on the A511 near the Jolly Collier public house.
A well known landmark at the centre of the town is the Clock Tower, a war memorial in memory of Coalville residents who gave their lives in World War I and World War II.
A section of the Nuneaton - Coalville railway at nearby Shackerstone, seven miles south of Coalville, has been restored and reopened as a heritage railway called the Battlefield Line.
The town is known nationally for the club night 'Passion' held at the Emporium in the centre of the town run by JFK (Jason Fatboy Kinch). Passion has attracted international DJs such as DJ Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk and the DJ Mag 2007 number one DJ Armin Van Buuren.
[edit] External links
Coalville's parish church, Christ Church on London Road was built between 1836 and 1838. The church houses a brass memorial plaque to the victims of the Whitwick Colliery Disaster and the gravestone of James Stephenson and Kelly Townsend.
(Source: Wikipedia) |