The Rock Driller

Another day on the Sculpture Trail today.


This is a Bronze and Steel sculpture made by Black Country Sculptor Luke Perry on a site near the Nine Apostles Colliery which closed to mining in 1904.
 I like his work very much.  
 
This is the The Rock Driller which shows the hard work of pre-mechanised coal mining. The rock driller works at height on a scaling ladder of the sort used in thick seam coal mining.  He would have the dangerous job of drilling the coal face by hand, inserting the black powder and dynamiting the coal face.  He would also have been at risk of silicosis.
 
Up the sides of the ladder are the words, “ The Devil made coal, made it black like his heart as he reaches the deepest recesses of the Earth so that he might drive man mad in the finding of it.”    
 
You can see the whole of the sculpture in The Extra.
 
It is positioned by the side of the Titford Canal Basins in Oldbury by the busy M5 and the A4123 road to Wolverhampton.