Archaeological Survey and Watching Brief on Land at Goyts Moss and Axe Edge Moor, Derbyshire

ARCUS were commissioned by IMC Consulting Engineers Ltd to undertake archaeological survey and watching brief at Goyts Moss and Axe Edge Moor, near Buxton, Derbyshire. The works took place prior to, and during, remedial works on a number of mine shafts, some of which comprise a Scheduled Monument (SAM 21663) on part of the site of the former Goyts Moss Colliery. which had become a potential hazard to land users. The first stage of archaeological works comprised a metrical survey of fourteen mine shafts and associated earthworks. The second stage of archaeological works comprised a watching brief during the removal of loose material which had collapsed into the shafts, and inspection of the shafts following consolidation. Coal is thought to have been worked on Goyts Moss from the seventeenth century onwards. The earliest features are opencast pits which are irregular in shape and depth and occur mainly in the north-eastern part of the coal outcrop where it is thought outcropping coal was first discovered. As deeper seams were exploited hand operated head-gear and horse-drawn gin winding engines (of different types) were utilised to extract the coal. The majority of shafts recorded during the archaeological survey and watching brief were those of the latter type, with earthwork remains of horse-drawn gin winding engines, probably eighteenth- or nineteenth-century in date. Coal mining at Goyts Moss has had a direct physical impact on the landscape and people of the region. The primary use of the coal was for limeburning, and the mining had an important and direct role not only in the establishment of Buxton as a major centre of limestone extraction and the limeburning industry, but also in the construction of the built environment of the town. The remains recorded at Goyts Moss are therefore a physical representation of not only the people that worked the pits, but also of wider social and industrial processes functioning in the region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.