A METAL miner has officially taken up pride of place on the Nightingale Way estate installed by the Somerset Miners Welfare Trust.

One of 150 metal miners the figures of miners were designed, manufactured by locals Dave and Kate Speed, and have been installed around North Somerset to mark the county's mining heritage.

The Impact & Willowbrook Estate is built over some of the seams of the Norton Hill Colliery with the Pit Heads with local roads showing the heritage of the site in names like Pit Head Lane.

The Resident’s Association for the estate built on the old Mardons site has been working for many months with the Somerset Miners Welfare Trust and GM Engineering, as well as other local companies, to create a wonderful memorial site for Norton Hill Colliery. A metal miner and a coal truck with Norton Hill Colliery inscribed on it with railway sleeper raised flower beds, are all located on the grass outside Mardons Social Club.

The earliest mention of Norton Hill Old Pit is in 1839, the shafts being sunk in 1846. Norton Hill Colliery connected to the Somerset & Dorset main train line just outside Midsomer Norton South station. Reliant on exploiting thin seams of coal and reportedly uneconomical, the colliery closed in 1966 along with the railway that served it.

In its heyday, more than 600 people worked at the colliery. Through the 1930s Norton Hill was the largest producer of coal in Somerset with an annual output of over 125,000 tons.

On April 9 it is was the anniversary of the Norton Hill mining disaster in which ten miners, including a boy aged just 14, were killed in an explosion in 1908.

According to the mining archives, many more might have been killed, as at the time there were about 380 men and boys employed at the colliery of whom 30 were underground at the time of the explosion. Five horses were also killed in the explosion which was at the bottom of the Slyving Vein Incline. During the years of the Norton Hill Colliery at least 20 people are known to have died working there.

A spokesperson said: “This is a very special memorial to remember the Norton Hill Colliery and those that worked there. The green area is the closest open space to the colliery and also has a large number of people passing it daily either on foot, bicycle or car.”

A 7ft Blue Spruce Living Christmas Tree - thanks to Hollow Marsh Christmas Trees, Farrington - has also been planted as a community tree to help build the community spirit. There are plans for events at Christmas, such as carols on the green and working with a local charity for memory baubles to be hung on the tree.

The spokesperson added: “Although it may not grow much this year as it settles itself into its new home, over the next few years we should see one to two feet of growth each year. It will be decorated at Christmas.”