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Moira is a former mining village about 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in the North West Leicestershire, England. The village is about 3 miles (5 km) miles south of Swadlincote and forms part of the boundary with Derbyshire. For centuries the area has been quarried and mined for coal, limestone, granite and brick clay, and its environmental damage was one of the reasons that it was chosen as the site for the National Forest, which is part of a Government-funded programme to create more woodland. Moira was a village in Ashby-de-la-Zouch parish until 1894 when the new urban district of Ashby Woulds was formed from the area to the west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch proper. The name Moira is derived from the Irish earldom of Moira, one of the titles of the Hastings family, which held Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle. The former local colliery, Rawdon Colliery, also bore a Hastings family name. Moira is one of the few place names in England to end in an "a". The Midland Railway opened its Leicester to Burton-upon-Trent Line through Moira in 1845. Moira railway station served the village until British Railways closed it in 1964. The building still survives and the line remains open as a freight route. Rawdon Colliery was worked for about 150 years. Its seams extended 6 miles (10 km) from the shaft,and some had been worked twice, recovering lower grade coal. The pit survived Britain's pit closure programme in the mid-1980s that followed the miners' strike, but ran out of viable coal seams. Gases were rarely a hazard, but spontaneous combustion of coal dust was a potential problem. [edit] Research Tips
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