Astley Green Colliery

Astley Green Colliery was a coal mine in Astley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was the last colliery to be sunk in Astley. Sinking commenced in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, at the southern edge of the Manchester Coalfield, working the Middle Coal Measures where they dipped under the Permian age rocks under Chat Moss. The colliery was north of the Bridgewater Canal. In 1929 it became part of Manchester Collieries, and in 1947 was nationalised and integrated into the National Coal Board. It closed in 1970, and is now Astley Green Colliery Museum.

Astley Green is the southernmost colliery on the Manchester Coalfield. It accessed the coal seams of the Middle Coal Measures laid down over 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous Period and overlain by Permo-Triassic rocks. A 100-foot (30 m) layer of alluvial deposits consisting of clay, sand, gravel and marl overlay the rock. The coal seams dipped at 1 to 4.5 towards the south. The Worsley Four Foot mine was reached at a depth of 722 feet (220 m) and the Arley mine at 3360 feet (1020 m).