AN anniversary in East Lancashire's industrial history that few will be aware of concerns the closure 84 years ago of the last colliery in the Blackburn coalfield.

Seen here in 1917 in a picture lent to us by reader David Pickup, who was a miner for 35 years, is the last of the line.

The Lol Hoyle pit, near Shadsworth, had by then exhausted the 18-inch thick Lower Mountain Mine seam that colliers burrowing underground in the direction of Shadsworth and Belthorn had exploited since the first half of the 19th century. The pit was officially closed the following January and the site was cleared in 1919.

Though never as important as East Lancashire's other coalfield, which covered the Accrington, Burnley and Rossendale areas, the coalfield to Blackburn's south -- roughly bordered by Livesey, Tockholes, Darwen, Lower Darwen and Shadsworth -- had been worked since at least the 16th century and even in the mid-19th century was producing more than 100,000 tons of coal a year.

By contrast, the much larger and far-longer-lived coalfield that was centred on Burnley had some 50 pits at its peak and still supported more than 20 up to 50 years ago.

And even in its decline -- the virtual end being marked by the closure of of its last deep mine; at Hapton Valley in 1982 -- it was still producing far more than the Blackburn coalfield ever did.

Burnley's Bank Hall pit alone was turning out 330,000 tons a year up to its closure in 1971.

Lol Hoyle pit was acquired around 1866 by Thomas Simpson and Company, of Oswaldtwistle, after it had been abandoned by its previous proprietor and was renamed the Lower Darwen Colliery.

A new shaft was sunk at Lol Hoyle where winding and pumping operations took place while banks of coke ovens at Sett End, Shadsworth, were supplied by coal carried along a chain tramroad