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| Cossall tip in Feb 2023 |
Today's "Tale from Watnall Hall" looks nostalgically back at our local slagheaps and the surprising things they've been used for...
The old black and brooding pit tip at Cossall is back again and it's as black and ugly as before. It has lost its grassy overcoat and is once again looking more like its old self, dark and menacing. It's being dug over with bulldozers as part of an ambitious redevelopment plan which will (wisely?) see new houses built on it. Local kids, now grown up, will fondly remember the old pit tips as the perfect play areas. Most were hidden under grassy landscaping in the 1980's after the pits closed and at the time no one really lamented their passing.
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| 2012 - The Watnall Alps with roe deer |
It was actually a mountain of gypsum, a by-product of cleaning the chimney flues of coal-burning power stations. Fernwoods stockpiled so much of it that huge excavator trucks could be seen on top of the mountain moving it around. It vanished after a couple of years presumably when the market for gypsum was at its most lucrative.
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| Watnall Alps shining in the sun |
It was briefly home to a ski slope in the 1990's. "Ski 2000" was an unusual ski slope made from a revolutionary short pile plastic matting aimed at creating a different artificial ski surface. It was made in Japan by Mitsubishi. The slope's architect had an interesting time trying to buy it...
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| Cossall's clever short pile ski mats |
Ski-ing holidays abroad were becoming affordable and dry slopes in the UK were popular to learn on but Cossall's slope only lasted a few years. Ironically, given its name, the site was closed down and up for redevelopment by the year 2000. The slope was hit badly by the recession. Mother nature then took over and the old pit tip slowly turned itself into a "natural" nature reserve used by dog walkers and off-road motorbikers. The only thing left is the road sign at Cossall roundabout pointing the way...
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| 1994 - "Ski 2000" on Cossall pit tip in its heyday |
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| 1996 - Ski slope during the opening of the Awsworth by-pass |
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| c.1996 taken from Bennerley viaduct |
It certainly made me surprisingly nostalgic for the slagheaps of my youth playing on the slopes of Sherwood pit tip in Mansfield "Woodus". Another Mansfield lad who went on to sub-edit a national daily paper, J.M. Wade, wrote this lament to the very same long lost slagheaps of his youth...
They’re takin’ away the slagheaps from the landscape of my youth
Murderin’ all those mountains of blood and sweat and booze
To tittivate the countryside, emasculate grim charm
By erecting fancy hillocks of bushes grass and gorse
But remember those pit tips, raise them high wi’ pride
Make them into monuments to miners who had died
Towering over churches, mocking factory spires
Dominating Nottingham-shire like angels in graveyards
If they want fancy countryside they got the Yorkshire Dales
The Derby Peak and Norfolk Broads and weather-beaten Wales
So leave alone my slagheaps, let them smoke and steam
Let them boast their living scars
To hell with pretty-fying folk!
Click below to hear his own passionate rendition of his poem...
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| Sherwood pit tip, Mansfield Woodhouse |
As you'd expect, the new Cossall pit tip housing development has aroused diverse public opinion. The local paper's website had these two fantastic contributors in March 2021 which are typical. I'll leave the final words to them...
Riggers1965 - "64 houses and room for a country park, really? If it's not the smallest country park in England then it's got to be in the top one".
JohnOGaunt - Reply to Riggers1965 - "So what? Derelict brownfield land is being repurposed as space for housing and leisure space. If its only big enough for local residents to walk their dogs and kids to play outside with a few trees planted then that's a bonus. Its still open space and new houses without damage to greenfield land. Let's celebrate that".
Riggers1965 - Reply to JohnOGaunt - "Let's not, as people have been walking around this area for the last 20 years. Natural habitat for loads of wildlife, but hey let's not worry about the loss of more greenspace. I'll just add, you must be completely off your trolly to buy a house on a former spoil heap. How planning permission has been granted for this development God only knows, brown envelopes anybody".
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| Cossall tip - Plans for the future include Postman Pat |
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| 1966 Cossall tip in its heyday |
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| From the Nottingham Canal on Xmas Eve 1961 |
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| Cossall ski slope - Looks like a "Trail" magazine photo shoot |
Notes, sources and picture credits:
- JM Wade obit Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2017/05/02/john-wade-telegraph-production-journalist-obituary/
Books - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztcYBQ0UENA&ab_channel=caodavies
YouTube - https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Michael-Wade/e/B01CKH7R0Q/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
-Steve Adams - Roe deer with Watnall Alps;
-https://dryslopenews.com/former-slopes/ England, Nottinghamshire, Cossall, Ski 2000. An unusual ski slope that operated in to the late 1990s which thousands of plastic balls on the slope aiming at creating a different artificial ski surface. The balls are reported to have gathered in to large drifts. Ironically, given its name, the site was up for redevelopment in 2000.
-https://collections.mun.ca/digital/collection/donwalsh/id/6860/rec/1
Memorial University of Newfoundland - Digital Archives Initiative
Archival Number and Title
Ski 2000, a dry ski slope in Cassell, outside Nottingham. We did a gig there and had a great time on the slopes
Subject Tip of the Iceberg Tour (1994), Dry slope skiing--England--Nottingham--Cassel
Date 1994
Memorial University of Newfoundland - Digital Archives Initiative
Archival Number and Title
Ski 2000, a dry ski slope in Cassell, outside Nottingham. We did a gig there and had a great time on the slopes
Subject Tip of the Iceberg Tour (1994), Dry slope skiing--England--Nottingham--Cassel
Date 1994
- History of coal mining in 10 objects - pit tips https://miningheritage.co.uk/pit-tips/
- Employee comments from people who worked at Cossall ski slope here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/348096325296404/permalink/5672342672871716/
Anyone else nostalgic for those old colliery playgrounds, the slagheaps of your youth? If so you're in luck. The old black and brooding pit tip at Cossall is back again and it's as black and ugly as before.
Keith Dicken, the Eastwood-based architect of the slope and part owner shares some stories...
As an architect based in Eastwood, I designed Ski 2000 and I was a part owner.
The slope was hit badly by recession.
Architects don’t normally get practically involved in engineering but I set out the ski tow with a theodolite. The tolerance for the cable was 12mm (1/2”) either way, along the length or risk the cable coming off its runners.
The beaded ski mat was made by Mitsubishi (as in the car manufacturers).
purchasing the matting from the Japanese was an education.
We wanted the mat, having skied on it in Nijmegen in Holland, but we were visited several times by the Mitsubishi team, before they agreed to selling it to us. Customer relations are fundamental to Japanese trade. We subsequently discovered that the CEO had 3 passions, Whiskey, Golf and English Literature. He loved the fact that he was visiting Eastwood but he incorporated a detour to Scotland for Golf and Whiskey.
I was employed as the architect for the site even though I didn’t ski at the time. I went skiing first the first time, with the others that were involved, and I am still skiing in my 70s. My partners are long since gone.
I got involved with the project because I dealt with difficult planning applications for the tip site at Cossal (Lee, Sisson and Derbyshire) and they had the original idea for the Ski slope.
I was determined to avoid Dendix so looked at 3 different mats, 2 of which were like skiing on broken glass.
We crossed the Channel to see the Mitsubishi matting, at the behest of an ex trainer of Eddy the Eagle, who arranged the visit. We were very impressed but it seamed too good to be true. The further away we got from the Ski centre, the more we wondered if it had been as good as we thought. We went back a few weeks later.
We didn’t have a location and it was pre Sat Nav days, and none of us had been to Holland before. We stopped on the highway and looked out at the only bump on the horizon. This had to be it!
Coming back we were stopped at the Belgian border and asked why we were there we said business, they said “what business”, we said skiing! We were ordered out of the car (a white BMW) and they searched everywhere, presumably for drugs. They sent us on our way but the whole process was repeated at the French border.
Somehow skiing in Holland didn’t sound likely!
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