Coal mining in the Black Country

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Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country area immediately west of Birmingham, England. It was the basis for the area's industrial development in the nineteenth century; without coal there was insufficient power. Commentators spoke of the Black Country as a great coalfield, and of the earth turned inside out by all the mining activity. Most of the mines were not large scale, but small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery exhibit at the Black Country Living Museum. There were as many as five or six hundred small pits like this exploiting the seams of the South Staffordshire coalfield.^[1]