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You are here: Home / Glossary

Glossary

Pit village

A village specifically established to house the workers for a pit or colliery, who were usually tied to the cottage by working at the pit. They were often planned as a square with the pit on one side, chapel (if built at all) and shops on the other and houses the remainder by the 19th century. They were also built as a series of terraces. These were built as a response to the increases in the industrial working population. Conditions were unhealthy in the early examples, but welfare reforms began in the later 19th century generally, as with the working conditions generally. Many of the earlier ones were pulled down - in the 1960s many were labelled D-villages, with D for demolition.

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