The Brandy Bottom Colliery is located on the South Gloucestershire coalfield in the parish of Pucklechurch, and is the site of a 19th century steam-powered colliery. It lay on the line of the Dramway, the horse-drawn railway that was used to haul coal from the Coalpit Heath area either to the River Avon near Keynsham or to Bristol, and which ran until 1850.
Photo right: Chimney and South Pit heapstead at Brandy Bottom, Dec 2010. Photo by Steve Grudgings
The early history is uncertain, but the earliest written record found so far indicates that the first shaft had been sunk around 1837. At that time it was known as ?Lord Radnor?s Pit?, and the first recorded use of the name ?Brandy Bottom? does not occur until 1856. Handel Cossham is known to have surveyed Brandy Bottom prior to taking out a lease and sinking a shaft at the nearby Parkfield pit in 1851. His company, Wethered, Cossham and Wethered, took out a lease on Brandy Bottom in 1871, and is thought to have sunk the southern shaft around this time. Brandy Bottom was then connected underground to the Parkfield pit, and used for hoisting coal from the latter, as well as for pumping and ventilation. As a result the complex is sometimes referred to as ?Parkfield South?, with the original pit being known as the ‘South Pit’ and the 1871 shaft as the ‘New Pit’. Cossham died in 1890, and his coal mining assets in the area were acquired in an auction by the East Bristol Collieries company in 1900. It is thought that coal hoisting at Brandy Bottom ceased sometime before the First World War, and the pit was then used for ventilating Parkfield and acting as an emergency exit. The Parkfield pit was closed in 1936, and Brandy Bottom has been derelict since then. It was made a Scheduled Ancient Monument, No 1091400, on 22 January 2001.