A few people have asked what Polbrook Gurney Colliery is like these days. Well, here we have a view taken from the rear of The Pedant & Armchair which is now a private dwelling, the pub having closed in 1988 after the landlord was arrested and jailed for locking up bus and trainspotters in the pub cellar often for weeks on end.
Drinkers were alerted by the smell coming up through the floorboards in the public bar, not helped by the fact that many of the incarcerated were quite smelly even before their incarceration.
Though many of the regulars were fully behind the landlord at the time, they also being somewhat irritated by the constant squealing nasal voices that many ‘spotters have, but the stench became too much for even the most loyal of cider swilling bar flies.
The colliery, the last to close in the Somerset coalfield in 1986 somehow has avoided demolition, partially due to plans for it to become a mining museum similar to that of The National Coal Mining Museum of Little England near Wakefield and The Big Pit in Little Wales.
Though to date, apart from a few false starts, nothing has happened other than running a few demonstration trains, but sadly the buildings require millions to make safe. However it is a popular location for moonshining activities, with the long arm of the law deeming any raids far too dangerous.
