Local Belief

Arley's miners said, at the time and to this day, that the statement made by the NCB was not strictly true. They believed the real reason was that Arley coal is of house quality which, by the sixties, was no longer needed in large quantities. For this coal to be sold as furnace coal -- in much greater demand -- impurities would have had to be added.

Another problem was that the coal which could be mined directly from Arley's seams is restricted because of faulting. The Arley Fault meant that coal now mined from Daw Mill Colliery was not accessible from Arley, yet Arley coal still can not be mined from Daw Mill or any of the Coventry 'Superpit' sites.

Trueman's "The Coalfields of Great Britain" describes the Arley Fault as "a remarkable, faulted half-dome", indeed even diamond cutting machinery has failed to break through the faultline.

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