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The Bristol region was one of the first places to use coal as a fuel in industrial applications. First it was used in soap manufacture and then in glass making, brewing, pottery and in many other ways.
Kingswood, a heath land east of the city, supplied Bristol’s first coal, hewn from outcrops, or 'bell pits'. Output was stimulated from the 17th Century by Bristol’s leading role and deep involvement in colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. In 1698 Bristol was legally allowed to trade for slaves, and between 1700 - 1730 the number of pits in Kingswood almost doubled. There were coal works in Lower Easton from at least 1793. These were shallow works obtaining coal from various outcrops in our area. Kingswood’s coal was supplied in huge amounts to the Quaker run Company for Brass and Battery Work, Baptist Mills which occupied land now covered by Junction 3 on the M32 motorway. As well as supplying domestic demand for brassware the Company exported brass goods to Africa to exchange for slaves. By 1712, Arthur Thomas, a Bristol pewterer and a partner the Company, stated that Bristol’s two copper works (copper being the main element of brass) were using 2,000 horse-loads of coal a week. Soon after there were to be 25 furnaces at Baptist Mills producing some 250-260 tons of brass a year.
During the 18th and 19th Centuries ship owners who were involved in the slave and West Indian sugar trades often filled up their otherwise half empty ships with coal, soot or lime to send to colonial plantations. Sometimes a hogshead of coal (a hogshead usually weighed around 11-12 hundredweight) was sent in exchange for one of sugar. In 1818, shipments of each hogshead of coal was charged at 28/- (£1.40p) plus 3/- (15p) for filling the hogshead.
From the records available it appears that the main Easton Pit was established sometime around 1830 at Coalpit Lane, now an extension of Felix Road. It was connected to a lesser working on nearby Pennywell Road. By 1907 it was trading under the banner of 'The Bedminster, Easton, Kingswood and Parkfield Collieries Ltd.’ which had its head office at the Easton Colliery. Today there is still a faded painted sign on St Gabriel’s Road saying “TO OFFICE EASTON COLLIERY”.
In 1911, after nearly a ninety years of production, the mine was abandoned. This closure followed a Bristol-wide miners strike which lasted three months. Local miners were finally forced back to work because of their reduced circumstances. In 1913 the colliery and its offices was sold by auction.