The Snowdown and Kent Coalfield Heritage
Group
(SKaCH)
This site is currently under construction, and SKaCH hopes you will frequently return to the site for further updates regarding progress and additional archive information.
Click here to go to:- Site Directory page for the latest information.
Snowdown Colliery is a group of buildings, standing on approximately 41 hectares (100 acres) of land in the Kent countryside, which is scheduled for demolition and redevelopment as an industrial estate. Local residents have formed the Snowdown and Kent Coalfield Heritage Group (SKaCH) to prepare an alternative scheme for the site and has commissioned a team of experts to prepare a study of the feasibility of finding new uses for the buildings.
Snowdown Colliery is the last vestiges of a coalmine in Kent standing roughly midway between Dover and Canterbury and close to the village of Aylesham which was built to house the families of some 650 miners. The mine dates from 1907 when the first shaft was sunk and it remained productive until it was closed in 1987. The twenty surviving buildings date from various times in the first half of the 20th Century and, being of robust construction, have resisted the best efforts of nature to reclaim them. Since the buildings of Kent’s other coal mines have been almost totally demolished Snowdown is unique and two of the buildings have recently been listed Grade 2 by English Heritage.The freehold of the land, which includes substantial open space used as waste tips and marshalling yards, on which the buildings stand is in private hands and a long lease is held by the Coal Authority (the body which acts as residuary authority for the coal interest on behalf of the DTI)
Where is Snowdown Colliery? Click here to view it on the satellite map.
The South East England Development Agency {click here to go to (S.E.E.D.A) web-site} is charged with finding a new use for the site with a view to creating employment and has prepared a scheme for developing it as an industrial estate. However a group of local people has developed the view that the colliery might lend itself to refurbishment and adaptation to provide educational, social and cultural facilities for both a local and a visiting public, whilst creating employment and training opportunities in the furtherance of SEEDA’s remit. SKaCH (Snowdown and Kent Coalfield Heritage Group) has been formed by the residents to pursue these aims. SKaCH is in the process of registering as a Company Limited by the Guarantee of its Members and has applied for registration as a charity with the normal wide range of powers in pursuit of its objectives.
SKaCH has five objectives in mind for the site:
1. The restoration of the buildings and their development for new uses.
2. The celebration of mining in the Kent Coalfield.
3. The creation of economic activity and the employment that goes with
it.
4. The making of opportunities for education and training for the local
community.
5. The making of opportunities for fun for the local and wider
communities.
SKaCH Contacts:
Chairman :- Bill Oliver, email:-
billy.oliver61@fsmail.net
Secretary :- Lawrence Knight, email:-
lawrenceknight43@yahoo.co.uk
Information& enquiries :- Ian Williams, email:-
mrianwilliams@yahoo.com
SEEDA agreed that SKaCH should produce a feasibility study to test the suitability of the buildings of Snowdown Colliery for new uses to provide employment, training and amenities for the immediate and wider communities. The study will address the practical and financial implications of any capital project that emerges and will also consider its economic viability in income and expenditure terms, since SKaCH is under no illusion that these considerations might constrain its wide ranging ambitions. On the advice of Judith Martin, Project Organiser of the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust which recently obtained heritage listing for No 2 Winding House and the Fan House, SKaCH appointed Richard York, an arts administrator experienced in commissioning the design, construction and management of arts buildings, to design a feasibility study and to make proposals for the skills required to carry it out.
Please click here to read the resulting
feasibility study in PDF format.
Fuelling
Creativity.
The
Potential for Converting the Buildings of Snowdown Colliery to
Community, Arts
and Environmental Uses.
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