History
There were mining activities in the area for centuries before the two main shafts, which formed Baddesley Colliery, were sunk in 1850. Although called Baddesley Colliery it was actually just over the border in Baxterley. From then on until 1989 when the pit closed most Baddesley men worked in some capacity at the mine.
The worst disaster at the mine occurred on 2 May 1882. There was a fire followed by an explosion and 23 men lost their lives in attempting to rescue nine nightshift workers trapped by the fire.
A memorial to all the men who worked in the mines, in the form of a pit head winding wheel was erected on the common on the site of the old Maypole pit. Since the closure of the mine the village is now mainly residential.
Read more about this topic: Baddesley Ensor
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“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)