Description:The entrance to Foxfield Colliery on Whitehurst Lane, taken around the time of its closure in 1965.
Foxfield Colliery was situated in the Cheadle coalfield, where coal-extraction goes back to the seventeenth century. Although work started on sinking the first shaft (752ft deep) at Foxfield in 1880, it was not completed until 1888. Another shaft was sunk later at 1000 feet deep and remained the same until the colliery closed in 1965. Around 1946, Foxfield employed some 390 men underground and 150 on the surface.
The obelsisk-shaped war memorial on the right was originally situated at the Park Hall Colliery, Cheadle. The inscription reads: "Erected by The Employers and Employees of the Park Hall Colliery Coy Ltd, Cheadle, Staffs. In Honour of those who left the Colliery to serve in the GREAT WAR 1914–1919".
On the front face is inscribed the names of four employees that did not survive; including Lieut W.A. Bowers of The 5th North Staffordshire Regiment, killed in France in 1916. He lived at Caverswall Castle. His father, William Eli Bowers was a J.P. and colliery proprietor.
The memorial is still there but the colliery site is now occupied by a chemical works [2013].