|
|
by Peter Lee
To me the name Bermuda conjures up thoughts of blue skies, deep blue seas, white beaches fringed with palm trees and colonial houses painted in every variety of pastel shades. I have never been to the real Bermuda, I have been to the hamlet of Bermuda, Nuneaton and the contrast is completely different from anything you can imagine. Because Bermuda is a pit village and somehow the name does not seem appropriate, but for those families who live there it has become their Shangri-la.
Today it is being gradually surrounded by industrial and housing development. How long will it be before this oasis of charm is demolished to make way for new housing? The whole village was built in a period of just twelve working weeks in 1893. Built because at that time the Griff Colliery Company had sunk a new colliery known originally as "New Winnings" but later and more familiarly as Griff "Clara". This was a relatively modern pit for those days and it brought in a whole influx of new miners who needed accommodation. 90 cottages were erected at an average cost of £100 each. They were built under contract to the Griff Colliery Company. Seven blocks three up three down whilst the remainder two up and two down. At the time they must have provided first class accommodation for the local miners. Originally oil lamps lit all the cottages only. A little extra culture was brought to the village when the mission hall also housed a lending library and a women's institute, which is as well, women were barred from the working man's club at the end of the village.
At one end of the village the railway line that once led from the Coventry branch up to Stanley's brickyard crossed the end of the village. A pair of level crossing gates protected the road. A small signal cabin was erected to house the levers which controlled signals giving access to the main line, interlocked with the signals at the Griff Junction box. The railway company also built platelayers and crossing keeper’s houses, and these added a new dimension to that end of the village. At this end, beyond the crossing gates, there was a canal basin, known as the Griff Arm of the Coventry Canal where boats were loaded with coal from the Griff pits for transport to various locations accessible by this method of transport. Sometimes it was quicker to send coal by canal than by rail because each barge had a dedicated load which went from A to B, whereas wagon loads of coal might be shunted from one set of sidings to another and it was not uncommon for individual wagon loads to take days to reach their destination.
A siding led away from the Griff branch railway on to the wharf. At one time narrow (3ft. 4½in.) gauge horse drawn tramways brought coal from outlying pits on the Arbury estate.
Earlier in the 19th century another row of miners cottages had been built presumably when the earlier Griff pits were working before they were gradually rationalised and superseded by the newer collieries, which took over production from deeper and more productive seams. Griff No. 4 and later Griff Clara. This was referred to by local people as "The Old Row" and was pulled down many years ago.
Finally you may ask how did Bermuda get its name? The answer is simple, the managing director of Griff Collieries named it as a mark of respect to the local landowner, Lieut. Gen. Sir Edward Newdigate-Newdegate, Governor of Bermuda from October 1888 - June 1892.
|