| By digging soughs, miners found they could lower the water table and allow mines to be worked deeper. |
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| The coal mining industry depended on using soughs until the mines became too deep to be drained by this means. |
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| Some soughs include branches to facilitate further drainage. |
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| Many soughs were dug throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. |
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| Other soughs were dug, including one in 1729 to drain the Worsley mines and another from Standish Colliery to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Crooke. |
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| Soughs were typically dug from their open end near a stream or river back into the hillside beneath the mine to be drained. |
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