Mining

[coalgirl]

Many years ago I was working near Mow Cop in Staffordshire and a local small drift mine was referred to as a 'fewtral' (Exact spelling not known). I cannot find any reference to such a mine in dictionaries or on google. has anyone heard of it.

[stewey]

http://www.surnamedb.com/surname.aspx?name=Few trell

Perhaps the mine belonged to a family named Fewtrell?

[Quizmonster]

A footrill - or footrail/fetterill - mine is, as you suggest, an open-cast one. Once the surface soil is removed, the coal is directly underfoot , ready to be dug out and one meaning of rill is a trench.

[stewey]

QM, your answer makes much more sense: I guess I was digging too deep:)

[Quizmonster]

Yeah, being superficial is always the best approach, Stewey. (Joke!)
Actually, I just played around with the sound Coalgirl seemed to be striving for and came up with 'foot' rather than 'fewt', which might be a purely local pronunciation. Thereafter, the trusty OED came up with the goodies. Cheers

[coalgirl]

Thank you Stewey and Quizmonster. I am happy with footrill and it appears a lot in North Country mining history. My connection was that we were clearing an old pit waste site and I was shown an inclined shaft (about 30 degrees from horizontal) with tracks to enable the miners to go to the face and horizontal adits and to bring out the coal. It was part of the Birchall Colliery which existed at that time. There is no connection between the mine and my code name. Thanks Stewey for the intro to the name website, very useful in other research I am doing.