A fine 3 storey winding engine house with its associated headstock on the No 2 shaft, Bestwood, has been preserved by the County Council. It contains a vertical twin cylinder steam engine of 1873, possibly by Worsley Messrs. Built locally for the Bestwood Iron and Coal Company, the engine is virtually complete, save for some footplates missing. It has been out of use since 1971. The building characteristically tall, is rather pretentiously decorated, in common with the company's other works. It has a stuccoed, rusticated plinth. It has lost most of its windows, but looks basically sound. (1) (7)

The only twin cylinder steam vertical winder in England.
The winding engine house was built to an Italianate design. Restored and opened as an attraction in 1995. The site has been landscaped by the County Council. (6)

Bestwood Colliery engine house was constructed in 1874 for the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company and is unusually ornate for a colliery building. It is a three-storey building of brick and concrete in an Italianate style. The building is notable for the early use of structural concrete, which was used externally in the moulded plinth and risticated basement and internally for the engine bed and ti support the frames of the winding drum. The engine for which the engine house was built was supplied in 1875 by the Worsley Mesnes Company of Wigan. It is a vertical twin cylinder, non-condensing steam winding engine, the only surviving working example left in England. The cast iron drum, 6 metres in diameter, is on the second floor. Ropes from the drum leave the building via holes in the west wall and travel over latticed ironwork supports to the headgear, which stands over a shaft to the west of the engine house. The headgear is built predominantly of wrought iron latticework. By the 1960s the shaft from which the engine wound had been superseded by a drift entrance, and the engine was maintained as a standby. The colliery closed in 1967, but the engine was kept operable until 1971. (8)

Scheduled Monument Notification: 29/01/1998. (8)

NCC?, Bestwood Colliery Winding Engine (Plan). SNT4425.

Data Held (Document). SNT2647.

(4), Ind Arch File

Data Held: Ground Photograph (Ground photograph). SNT2646.

8 colour print, A92/7, A93/1,2, SMR

Listed Buildings Slides, 27 slides (Photograph). SNT2648.

Nottingham Corporation, 1882-1956, Records of the Borough of Nottingham, Vols I-IX (Monograph). SNT2.

DOE, 1987, Dist of Gedling (Unpublished document). SNT6300.

B.V. Jones, 1993, Building Report of Winding Engine House and Headgear at Bestwood Colliery, Bestwood St. Albans (Unpublished document). SNT4831.

Robin Thornes, 1994, Images of Industry: Coal, p. 32-33 (Published document). SNT6302.

English Heritage, 1994, The Coal Industry, Nottingham 4: English Heritage Monuments Protection Programme Industrial Monuments Assessment (Step 3 Reports) (Published document). SNT6301.

G.V. Bloomfield, 1997, Bestwood - a colliery and ironworks in the Nottinghamshire coalfields 1872 - 1884 (Unpublished document). SNT5958.

<1> White PR, 1973, AM7 (Unpublished document). SNT1413.

<2> Falconer K, 1980, England's Industrial Heritage, p 174 (Published document). SNT684.

<3> Ayris IM, 1983, AM107 (Unpublished document). SNT424.

<4> Reedman K, 1977, Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT1180.

<5> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed., p 73 (Monograph). SNT4.

<6> Chris Matthews, 2022, Model Villages of the Nottinghamshire Coalfield (Published document). SNT5309.

<7> Gedling Borough Council, 1991, Gedling's Heritage, 28 (Published document). SNT1552.

<8> Historic England, 2021, National Record of Historic Environment (Digital archive). SNT5271.