A PIECE of Leigh mining history has come back home - thanks to the initiative of an amateur artist.

For when Gilbert Higgins was given several large wooden picture frames containing delapidated photographs, he stripped them down and was astonished to find an histroic 'treasure' behind one of them.

It was a large, colourful, illuminated address presented in 1886 to local man Robert Edge who risked his life to enter colliery shafts and workings looking for survivors after a devastating explosion on Friday, August 13, 1886, at the Bedford Pit which stood in Higher Folds.

The address will now be presented to Lancashire Mining Museum for posterity.

Mr. Higgins, from Newton le Willows, said: "I was amazed when I came across the address because the colours were so striking. It had been used for some reason as a backing card for one of the pictures in the frames I was given. As an amateur painter I was delighted to receive the frames, but I am also highly delighted to be able to help save this part of Leigh's past. It is great that by facing inward the colours have been preserved."

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