The Colliers of Colliers Wood
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- More fun with place names! Depending how you define "fun," I suppose.
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The OED has a full column with seven separate meanings for ‘collier’.
A sidenote to the Wandles navigability:
It was navigable in the past, all the way from Mitcham to Smugglers Way in Wandsworth, not for conventional boats but for barges. There is evidence of the old launches between Merton Abbey and Wimbledon. Barges used to take mitcham's other produce - lavender, down to market this way
As a child in the sixtys I grew up around that area my great aunt Rose was over ninty and lived all her life in colliers water lane Thornton heath, she told stories about all the different charcoal burning camps between there and mitcham, especially pollards hill
Yes my great great uncle told me exactly the same stories about the same area
Also about the amount of lavender that was grown in the area
A collier can also be a coal-carrying ship (as you later pointed out), or a necklace. In Shakespeare’s language, ‘collier’ was a term of contempt - a person willing to ‘carry coals’ or put up with insults.
A collier in my neck of the Southern U.S. is a producer of charcoal, a coal miner, a delivery man of either, or a naval vessel dedicated to delivering coal. Pretty handy term if you think about it…..
Thanks for your support from across the pond for these different meanings of collier. I was concerned that being words or terms used around Elizabethan times (the 1st Queen Elizabeth!), that they predated the Pilgrim Fathers and therefore only the fossil coal would have been used in US English. Pleased that some archaic UK words have made it into the American dialect.
Question for Suzi Dent , where did "Char" come from. (presumably the use of Char for a cup of tea refers to the brown resultant liquid - or is it a true indian word ?) There is Charing in Kent and Charing Cross in London. Charringtons ( Brewers in London ) and Charringtons ( colliery owners ? coal wholesalers/merchants - again London more than elsewhere ? / fuels generally - oil etc ). Wood when been in a fire is charred , but only useful for further use when it is Charcoal.
You also forgot Collier Row in the London Borough of Havering and was once in Essex unless you already did a video about Collier Row. Or is this just based on Colliers Wood in South London that used to be in Surrey.
Gripping stuff.
I think it would be fair to say, then, that a collier is “one who brings coal”, whether that's a man charring wood or digging it up, or a ship transporting it across water.
But not a man bringing it to your house in a sack. That's a coalman.
Isn't English fun?
There’s indeed no coal in the vicinity…that’s a miner observation 😆
Oh good grief! 🙄
The 'Wood' part in the name, sort of suggests that wood is linked with thr name .... yes I know coai comes from wood ( compressed and subjected to heat by nature) but I agree with the charcoal explanation. Many thanks for the great content as always
There seams to be a rich vein of comedy here
😅😅😅
That's just the pits.
Europe is extremely deforested, far more than people realise. Really the only primordial forest left in Europe is the Białowieża Forest on the Poland/Belarus border. Worth a visit, and it's also about the only place that the European bison still roams. Has a very interesting story all by itself.... oh, there's a narrow gauge railway too if trees aren't your thing.
European Bison, imported ones are used for conservation grazing in woodland nature reserves in Kent, they eat more brambles than cattle and less soil compaction as have larger feet to spread the weight.
Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest fell victim to the charcoal makers.
@@ktipuss Thought that most of the Oaks fell victim to the Royal Navy as did most Oaks in England not on Private Estates.
@@tonys1636 Nelson ordered the planting of more oak
@@highpath4776 An English Oak takes 300 years to grow, 300 to mature and 300 to die. Trees planted in Nelson's time are only mature now.
The opening to Romeo and Juliet written by some obscure Elizabethan playwright sometime about 1594-96 starts with:
SAMPSON Gregory, on my word we’ll not carry coals.
GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers.
Make of it what you Will.
Ah "will", I see what you did there 😉😉😉
Seasonal info nugget: Be it coal or charcoal, the word collier referred to someone who made, transported or dealt in the black stuff and the derivative adjective 'colly' would be used to describe something equally darkly hued, for example blackbirds, which would be termed 'colly birds' on account of their (char)coal black pigmentation. These then are the 'Four colly birds' in the song the 12 days of Christmas, which, with their beautiful song would have made a delightful gift for your true love. This is why everyone who ignorantly sings 'four calling birds' is just plain wrong and won't be getting any Christmas presents this year.
Your comment at the end, about how apostrophes work, has doubtless blown several viewers' minds.
A collier is also a name for a coal merchant. My grandad was a collier in elephant & castle. Hackney has a colliery band, but no coal mines as far as I know.
If it was dug in 'Ackney, ot would 'ave been known as 'oal...
I collected "sea coal" from the beaches of the Mersey estuary for many years. It burns beautifully hot. Some people say it's coal from the bunkers of the ships that sank in the Mersey over the years, but most likely it is coal washed out of the seam that runs under the Irish Sea from North Wales.. Sorry, no real relevance to the interesting Colliers Wood post but I just fancied sharing my not very interesting sea coal story! Love the channel by the way.
There are quite a few uses for ashes: wood ash contains calcium, magnesium, potassium and other important nutrients. It can be used in fertilizer and to neutralize acid soils, to make soap, and in other chemical processes. It can also be used as a prize in the greatest sporting competition in the world.
Also used for glazing pottery.
How do you extract the minerals from it?
@@maxeylifetv2676You put it on the ground and let the rain do the rest.
I think you'll find the prize for winning the greatest sporting competition on earth is the Sid Waddell Trophy 😉
Thank you for writing this down so I don’t have to look up what minerals are contained in ash.
The Chambers Dictionary (I still refer to the 1998 edition I have on my bookshelf in preference to relying on online sources) confirms your assertion that a collier can be a charcoal burner, though lists that meaning as _(obs)_ meaning obsolete, and obsolete in this context doesn't mean that no-one uses it, just that it's not in common usage today. Or wasn't in 1998, more accurately.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
A-ha. My Oxford English dictionary of the same vintage makes no reference of charcoal burners at all. In the same manner as you, this is my go to source. So, two major dictionaries of the same period not agreeing. What was the world coming to then? Did they, between them, envisage Jago Hazzard and his monologues?
@@roboftherock Isnt there a Jack Hargreves out of town or similar episode covering charcoal burners , probably a BBC countryfile feature too
@@highpath4776 Thank you. I don't know, but I'll certainly look it up. If there is it'll be more entertaining than current tv offerings.
@@roboftherock Full series of "the old country" has been uploaded by the producer over the last couple of years
Another out of use word in line with this is a "coppicer". A coppicer would grow knots of trees which when broken down and banked over produced a very "sweet" charcoal requiring little effort compared to a standard charcoal burner operation and charcoal coppicing operations can be seen on maps and topography still today as often daft folks in beardy attire would claim they were plague pits but were by and large just charcoal banks. Plague pits and charnals tended to have their precise location held within parish records for the very useful reason of not allowing simple folks to go round digging up those holes of terrifying mysterious deaths hence why claims charcoal banks were plague pits very easy to disprove just by looking into the many times copied parish lands and registry records every local church held. Coppicing was considered one of the first attempts at energy sustainability, it was quite a well thought out thing in its day, the coppicer would know the age of his trees and which future year those trees would be had for making into fuel, nurturing the saplings and maintaining a little eco bubble, fancy mansion gardeners would also buy the once heated earth from the coppicer to use on lawns and beds as being carbon rich and mixed with horse doings produced a very potent fertiliser for growing things. Henry VIII was the scourge of British trees pretty much, his new fangled navy required whole forests to be turned toes up to build his fancy men o' war, riding the winds of change and with more ships needed more piers, more support craft and so the trees did their duty and as was common were never replanted.
Coppicing is being revived in local woods where it was used historically and hence is needed if those woods are to revert to their former character. Selsdon Woods and Kingswood in Sanderstead (a pleasant walk away) are examples where the friends if those woods are striving to return them to their former mix of trees etc.
That water wheel is rather nice. Beautiful, even.
It's funny, though. Jago does his research, consults reference materials, and states with a reasonable level of confidence that "collier" means, among other things, one that produces charcoal. "No!" cry the comments. "It's means 'coal-miner', so you're wrong!"
Oddly enough, the British Oxford dictionary only lists the coal miner as the meaning of the word, whereas the American Merriam-Webster's dictionary lists the charcoal maker, the coal miner, and the ship.
But yeah, one thing that has always struck me about London is the suspicious absence of any collieries. The coal mines, that is.
Fun fact: the Dutch word for "coal" is "kool", which is pronounced almost the same as in English. "Steenkool" (literally: stone coal) means (sea) coal, "houtskool" (literally: wood coal) is charcoal, "bloemkool" means cauliflower, and "rode kool" means red cabbage. OK, perhaps those were not the best examples.
So related to the German _Kohl_ then?
@@clickrick Indeed. But it doesn't mean "money".
Köhl?
That's Merton Abbey. Time Team did an amazing dig alongside the river to find industrial sites associated with Libertys.
@@bob56gibson they dug in the wrong area and missed further sidings ( now built over ) and other evidence of pre Littler's mills printing dyeing and drying
As a child I lived in the Romford area, not far from Collier Row, which was named after the colliers who used the nearby Gobions Wood for their wood to convert (Gubbins Lane is almost certainly named after the woods). My late father and I, after we moved their, assumed it was to do with mining (colliery and and all that) but there were never mines anywhere near there. Research revealed the charcoal reason. I always assumed (!) that Colliers Wood was also named after a similar fashion. Charcoal being a staple fuel back in the day. On another notes there was a road near Collier Row that caused us schoolboys much mirth: Mashitters Hill. I must look that one up, as I’m sure it wasn’t related to what our schoolboy humour led minds depicted it was…
Colliers Wood is jago’s Hood
Haha, the comment section here never disappoints
2:36 Wood ash is a ready source of potassium, the element's name even comes from pot-ash. Because of the potassium it is useful as fertiliser. Mixing ash with fat/oil is a way to make soap though quality varies based on what plant the ash is from
That said, better to get that ash after you've usefully burnt the charcoal
3:39 For whatever reason in your original video I had interpreted "charcoal burners" as charcoal fuelled ship, in the vein of coal burner or oil burner. Apparently colliers put ships front of the mind
In hindsight Collier is a term used for a lot of coal/charcoal adjacent things
A collier is a ship carrying coal. I remember the low-funnel 'Flatirons' from the North East going under the Thames bridges to Battersea and Fulham power stations.
The term is also used in the navy for any refuling vessel, presumably becasue the first such were delivering coal.
The coalfields in East Kent were only discovered when they dug exploratory bores for the (19thC) Channel Tunnel...fun fact...
"Lets dug a tunnel to France, oh we've just found a seam of coal, change of plans."
Probably one more for Dracinifel, but my understanding was that the reason for the restrictions on colliers on making charcoal (at least in the south of England) was that the Tudor monarchs wanted the oak trees to be left standing so that they could have the long, straight timbers for ship building. When the coppicers took the oaks out, the resulting regrowth produced short, bend timbers that were no good for boats.
you need bends , particulary for the "knees" as the hull curves. you can tie down branches as they grow to get desired shapes - same for ash and beech for chair makers
Perhaps one of the most famous colliers (plying the coal trade along the East coast) was HMS Bounty (formerly the Bethia), which the Royal Navy bought specifically for Captain William Bligh's ill-fated mission to collect Breadfruit plants from Tahiti. This is not relevant to Jago's video as the Northern Line does not (yet) call at Tahiti.
Also HMS Endeavour (Captain Cook’s ship) was also a Collier. It was chosen for the ability to be easily beached for any repairs incurred during his long exploration of the Pacific
Hello from New Zealand
@@davidthorne7712 And it's great to wake up on Saturday morning to a new video from Mr. Hazzard. Greetings from Waikikkamukau.
Do you know Colliers Wood?
No, but thanks for the tip!!
I think you well and truly barbequed the doubters there
In the North East where I am from coal miners were called colliers and a coal mine was a colliery. When I first heard Jago’s comment re this I also thought it strange, but would make sense as there is no coal in London, and I can easily see how a charcoal burner being covered head to toe in soot and making burnable products could have been co-opted to a Coal Miner….or since we have been mining coal in the Northeast for at least 1200 years, in bell pits at first, and we would also have had charcoal burners, perhaps it just meant the same? TY Jago, all good stuff:)
Collier meaning "maker" of charcoal was the original meaning if the word. It was applied later to miners.
Aged, erm old, and from a coal-mining backgroud, in the North-East, (both grandfathers, all uncles etc.), I'll not get into the debate. But the reason Elephant and Castle is called that is pretty obvious. There used to be a castle there, owned by an elephant called Mr Heffalump, surely everyone "dan sarf" knows that? :)
As the trade in charcoal diminished, the name collier most likely moved to mean a coal miner?
Colliers Wood... I remember it well. As for the River Wandle, when I lived in Mitcham during the late 1960's and early '70's, it was little more than an open sewer, full of rubbish and smelled disgusting; not helped by the local Tannery, which was just across the road from the Tube station. I haven't been back there since 2001, so have no idea what it's like today. Maybe someone can enlighten me. Nice fun episode.
4:41 And while we're on a bit of a ramble, that's a nice big ad for Suzume, the latest animated film from Makoto Shinkai. A very good movie, highly recommended; nice adventure story of falling in love and averting supernatural disasters (Remember kids, always shut the door behind you or else a giant worm might emerge from a parallel universe that may or may not be Heaven and will destroy your city with an earthquake if it falls. Yeah, that old chestnut of wisdom), stunning visuals, great music, the English voice acting is superb, and yes there's plenty of Japanese trains in it too. Still nothing to do with Colliers Wood other than a fun evening at the cinema or at home with Crunchyroll streaming.
Why would colliers live there. Because Colliers Would. In order to make charcoal.
My grandfather used to collect pebbles of coal which washed up on Burntisland beach....probably from Kirkcaldy or Weymess further along the coast which had substantial mines. The problem was with this "sea coal" (he definitely called it that) it would be full of seawater which took ages to dry out before it could be used on a fire... But free coal, right!
Interesting how the same word for a necklace in French has a, completely different meaning and etymology in English. Or maybe that's the explanation: there was some famous French jeweller selling necklaces in the middle of the wood!
There's definitely a pedantic video idea here: All the stations that don't have an apostrophe in the name that should. And are there any that have an apostrophe that shouldn't have or thats' in the wrong place? E.g. Rayners Lane, Barons Court, Parsons Green, Canons Park, Golders Green etc.
Some of the roundels in the station used to have an apostrophe ( _before_ the s, as it happens). Maybe they still do; I haven't thought to check lately.
No coal mines in Romford but the north of the town is Collier Row and there was a pub there called the Charcoal Burner 😊
I came i saw i clicked NUFF SAID !!!
It's worth remembering that a colliery is a coal mine: no other type of mine.
Maybe but charcoal isn't mined so I'm not seeing the point.
@@AnthonyHandcock Exactly.
I have some charcoal in a bag in my house. I paid for it, so it's definitely mine.
Down the road in Mitcham there were a lot of paints inks japan and varnish factories and bleach works. I suggest soda ash and the charcoal black were used in this chemical works. (plus Paynes Fireworks for the gunpowder demand) so lots of early possiblities for what the colliers were producing , though the industry heyday of 1825 to 1975 roughly the raw materials came from further afar
A ship used to re-coal steamships was called a collier.
My great aunt married Joe collier who's family history was mining in the North he supposedly left home to work on these "bunkering " ships which I'm led to believe were the larger vessels which they supposedly supplied the coal .
As were the small ships hauling coal into London from the North East.
Hooray for Jago, who knows where to put an apostrophe 😊
Maybe he is on a different genetic branch to the green grocers.
It was called Colliers Wood because a chap broke his collar bone while building the station, I too found a book to confirm it 😂
Sea coal because in the NE England there were coal seams exposed at cliffs so accessible from the shore.
PS. Off Faringdon Street you can still find Old Seacoal Lane.
Norwood is the great North Wood. North of Croydon, you see? I am led to believe it was a good place to burn charcoal.
I'm glad you care about apostrophes. "Mango's 50p"..."Which mango?" Happy Christmas Sir. 🎄⭐👍
I still "ask" a question....but the youth of today have decided they "arks" a question. it's just what happens over time.....
When you use a tube station daily for commuting and never give it any attention and then years later some one tells you why is it named so.... Well, I just remembered a Turkish poet living in a nearby Council Tower who was writing a poem named Trees of the Colliers Wood and I wonder if he ever knew of this origin of the area. There wouldn't have been any trees left if that was the case.
Ash? Soap!
Well I learned something surprising. I know something of charcoal burning, and though I know a little about coal mining, but nrever knew collier had meanings in both. Thanks.
Loaded this and You Tube told me it had no views but 3 comments!
Mistakes are not unknown on Victorian Ordnance Survey maps but they have the place as Collierswood - one word.
it's Very common for place names in English to lose their possessive apostrophies. Heck, street names here (New Zealand, or at least my local bit of it) generally never have them to begin with, even if they very much should.
I think the name is a good demonstration on how language changes over time, in a way.
As it still maintains the ‘collier’ despite the history not matching the modern definition
Dropping the apostrophes (and other punctuation like periods and hyphens) seems to be a general thing now. About 5 years ago, the ORR also removed them from the station names, bar a few inconsistencies for no apparent reason, and I might have pointed that out to them. They fixed it the year after.
Very interesting Jago. It would be fascinating if one day you would further expand on the Colliery's subject. After all Coal and railways go hand in hand.
Coal ash does have a use; you'll frequently find it alongside the older railway sidings, where it provides a well drained path for the workers. Of course it was a free commodity back when steam ruled the railway network, not so much now unless you're on a heritage line.
Wood would make sense but which wood would work best? Was there any particular type of wood grown in Colliers Wood?
I looked up the various definitions of Collier after the first video on the subject and discovered that it was at one term an insult, as referenced in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" since it referred to people who carried coal to people's homes which meant that they were both menial labourers and rather dirty. The place name might therefore have originally meant "the wood where those common dirty people live"... but it's probably best not to tell them that.
Well I learned something new today. Thankyou Jago.
I knew about collier meaning miner, didn’t know about the other two! I suppose it makes sense that it really just means “that who brings the coal”, regardless of what kind of coal or how they bring it 😊
It is strange that the faster moving , shorter flat part of the Escalators at South Wimbledon give me Colly Wobbles when descending. I dont get them at Colliers Wood
Thank you for getting plural possessives right 😊
Being someone who is from the Weald of Sussex, the term collier certainly refers to those who created charcoal from the wood. Not a lot of coal mines south of the Thames (and those in Kent were meant to be a bit rubbish from what I’ve read!)
Great video
The best timber for making charcoal to be used in gunpowder is Alder.
How about a bit on the those Mills along the Wandle that still have intact / working mechanisms for us engineering types?
We have a charcoal kiln at Chiltern open air museum that we occasionally use, it’s a very interesting process but does smoke the site out a bit!
This is a perfect bit of pedantry and I'm very reassured by it.
Aha!!! But if it was a wood, owned by a Mr Collier, then it would be Collier's Wood. 🙂
Collier Row near Romford has the same derivation and Wikipedia cites charcoal burners that used to live there.
Coal Miners don't make charcoal but Colliers Wood
Is the Northern Line the only line with two stations named for wood burning?
“Coal” can also mean the burning end of a slow match.
From a brewing history perspective i know that Charcoal production was heavy in both kent and Hertfordshire during 1700s since it was used to dry both hops and malts for London breweries. Since hop production was also widespread in surrey at this time in history no doubt the collier is referring to those charcoal profucers
'Sidetracked': that's a good one.😊
Chopping down all the trees in the locality to make charcoal will likely put you out of work as a collier.
That isn't how it is done, the trees are coppiced. Stumps are left to shoot, and the shoots are harvested every few years, so there is continuous production.
@@grahvis Thank you sir. I stand corrected.
Ash is indeed commercially useful - if you refer to the tarrif schedule on the Surrey Iron Railway video, it lists "Lime and all Manures (except Dung), Lime-stone, Chalk, Clay, Breeze [see note], *Ashes,* Sand, Bricks, Stone, Flints and Fuller's Earth" as goods which attract a rate of 2d per mile.
[note] The stuff they make breezeblocks out of. Yes, really.
Cinder blocks? Links into pantomimes at this time of year.
Good evening, Sir. May I dare to suggest the collaboration with NAME EXPLAIN CHANNEL for a series on London Underground' sattions dark names?
Well done, Jago! I was actually unfamiliar with the meaning of 'charcoal burner' knowing the term as 'coal miner' but I assumed that you knew what you were talking about. You usually do.
YES - I did enjoy today's offering - great to see the Wandle again. Please look at Honey Wood Lodge sometime
When at one point you mentioned the deforestation in the UK, I think I'm right in adding that the extensive use of wood for shipbuilding in earlier centuries was also a major factor.
WADR kindly restrict your observations to miner matters 😂.
Surprised you didn't mention that the pub in the video is the Charles Holden opposite Colliers Wood tube station. Charles Holden was of course the English architect best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s including Colliers Wood.
Already did - in the previous video.
I spent over 30 years living in Colliers Wood and can confirm from studying the local history that charcoal burning did indeed take place there. The main source of wood in early Victorian times was called "Leg o' Mutton field" which I believe was situated around what is now Kimble Rd/Boundary Rd. If you look at Kimble Rd on a map it does have a slight kink at the Boundary Rd end which makes it look a little like a leg of mutton. This is based on information I gathered from many local history books.
Occasionally quickies are nice.
A bit of technical knowledge! The use of coke for locomotive useage was actually a derivative of charcoal proceesing! The same basic techniques used for charcoal,is used for coke,as the excess water,and by products in coal is burned off in a container! The resultant coke is lighter,and more highly combustible! In steel making,it is a must! BTW,charcoal was also used in the production of various alcohols,and sundry substances! There were serveral rivers in the US,that were noted in the early days,as sources of charcoal,and the industry was going up until WW2! Thank you,Jago,and may your research be a gold mine! Thank you 😇 😊!
But the area is; full of coke
I hear it exists in London.
The original soap was made partly from wood ash.
Wood ash and animal fat.
Wood ash is used as a fertilizer as it contains lots of the macro-nutrients phosphorus and potassium.
We can all dig it, Jago.
You mentioned there are no coal mines around London and Colliers Wood 🪵. Do you know what that reminds me of? A scene 🎬 in the 2000 movie 🎦 BILLY ELLIOT when Billy and his dad 🧑 Jackie go to London to look 👀 at the Royal 🤴 Ballet 🩰 School 🏫, for Billy’s first audition and on the coach, Billy asks _”Dad! Have you ever been to London before?”_ Billy’s Dad replied _”Why would I want to go to London?”_ and Billy replied _”It’s the capital city 🏙️”_ . Billy’s dad replied _”Well, there are no mines there!”_ . Billy replied _”Crikey! Is that all you can think 💭 about?”_
Thanks Jago, interesting. One small point and sorry to be pedantic but the bedrock and overlying uncemented natural deposits that underlie London are not 'soil(s)' . Soils are what plants grow in. Now you know.🙂
Only the true pedant would out dant a master practioner. 😂
It could be named after the landowner like Pett's wood or Biggin's hill. There would be charcoal burners everywhere.
2:30 Ash is a source of lye, so you can use it for soapmaking, for example.
It was used in glassmaking as well (forest glass specifically).
Standing with you on this one, Jago 👍
Sea Coal from 13th century, called Sea coal to distinguish it from charcoal. First coal mine was sunk in 1575, under the Firth of Forth. 1700 coal production was 3 million tons a year and used as fuel for steam engines. A collier was a charcoal burner, and from the Middle Ages till the late 18th century, charcoal was the commodity for which Croydon became best known. Charcoal was an important domestic and industrial fuel, and because of its rich woodland surroundings Croydon was a main source of fuel for London in the days before coal was brought down by boat from the north-east of England. You can find more by searching fir the Great North Wood. This Great North Wood stretched for several miles between the Thames and Croydon: from Deptford in the north to Selhurst in the south, with the dominant trees being oak and hornbeam.
A very good explication of the term 'Colliers' Jago!!! 🙂🚂🚂🚂
My dad’s cousin’s underground station. We’d stop here and walk to his house. After travelling by tube from Euston.
Re: The Apostrophe...unless it was a wood owned by a Mr Collier😃
I'll get me coat....