Snowdown Colliery, which closed in October of 1987, was sunk on what was once the Holt Street estate located in the Manor of Fredville in the old parish of Nonington. The colliery was located on what was known as the “Great Field” of the Holt Street estate, which by the time work had begun on the colliery had evolved into Holt Street Farm. The “Great Field” and its neighbours to the east:Down Bottom and Close, Bromhill Wood and large parts of Rueberries and Longlands, later disappeared underneath the colliery buildings and its ever expanding spoil heap which eventually reached as far Nightingale Lane. Snowdown Colliery and the adjoining hamlet built to house colliery workers both took their name from the nearby Snow Down, which is situated a quarter of a mile or so to the south-west of the colliery site.
Above: an unedited section of the 1797 Ordnance Survey map showing Nonington.
Below: Nonington as shown on the 1797 Ordnance Survey map after AI clean up and renaming
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The “Great Field” on which Snowdown Colliery was sunk was shown, but not named, on the first Ordnance Survey map of the Nonington area published in 1797. This was the first properly surveyed map of Kent. The above is an AI enhancement of the relevant section of this map which retains all of its original features, but I have made some amendments to the naming as shown on the original map to avoid confussion over the location of various places.
By some cartographer’s quirk Curleswood Park Farm was shown on the original 1797 OS map as “Nonnington Park”, to my knowledge this is the only OS map on which this misnaming occurs.
The 1797 map also showed Holt Street as Old Street, and Esole Street as Hazle Street. In the old East Kent dialect, now sadly consigned to history, Holt Street would have been pronounced as ‘Old Strit and Esole Street as “Ayzle” or “Eyezle Strit”. The surveyors obviously wrote down phonetically the names they were given by local inhabitants. At this time native born inhabitants would have used the old Kent dialect, what was to become known as Received Pronunciation was used by the upper classes and those of the burgeoning middle classes who wished to imitate their social betters to appear more cultured.
Above: a section of the 1859 Poor Law Commissioners Map of Nonington. The map shows the proposed route of the London to Dover railway line through the parish of Nonington that was not completed until 1861
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