The Neston Colliery (later known as “The Wirral Colliery”, and then even later as “The Wirral Colliery (1915)”), was situated on the eastern coastline of the Welsh Dee estuary, at the end of Marshlands Road (previously known as Colliery Lane) in Little Neston, Cheshire West, using a site that was made vacant by the demise of the Anglican Smelting Company.

The Anglican Smelting Company started mining coal at the site after its formation in 1858, to when the company was wound up in 1862, with auction sales of the company assets in 1863 and 1866. It was not long afterwards that the Neston Colliery Company was started up, using the Anglican Smelting buildings, mineshafts and mining equipment.

The new colliery was quite modern for its era, but it was a complicated story of continuous development. The developments were forced upon the owners and management by economics and had to be performed to remain in business.

Before the Neston (Wirral) Colliery era, the market for Neston coal was mainly local, expansion obviously involved more distant markets and transportation, hence the requirement for a railway connection.