Print of Betteshanger Colliery
by artist Terence Brind
This month’s Object of the Month is a signed original print of Betteshanger Colliery brought in by former underground electrician and KMM volunteer Mick. Mick comes from a family of Betteshanger miners.
This print depicts Betteshanger Colliery in the “Primitive-style” (style of art using simpler shapes and more abstract figures).
One can see many iconic buildings related to the colliery. Present are the two winding headgears, two power station chimneys, and the Coal Preparation Plant to the left of the headgears. In front of the gates is the home coal weigh bridge and office – coal was first delivered to miners’ homes by horse and cart, and later by Hendrik and Son coal merchants. The bath house and canteen can be seen in the centre foreground of the picture, while the lamproom and paper shop (Jones) are seen on the bottom right-hand corner. The Jones paper shop still exists to this day as a private house.
One can also observe the many modes of transport helped to run the colliery. In the bottom left are two red East Kent buses which would collect men from Thanet, Dover and Canterbury, and on the right are three Thompset’s buses which collected men from Deal. In the background on top of a mound is the small steam British Rail train (0-4-0) which was replaced by diesel shunters, and later replaced by conveyor belts which would drop the coal and waste in what is now Betteshanger Park.