The East Shropshire coalfield was worked for a very long time and genertations of colliers took part. In fact miners went from here to the Black Country - in Bilston they lived in 'Shropshire Row'!

Just an aside - I was looking at old records of morris dancing in this area - which had many groups of dancers - and noted that they 'danced with pickaxe handles' - bit unwieldy I thought, them saw a miners pickaxe handle - they are of course only about 15-18 inches long -it's impossible to use a long handle in a three foot seam!!