This gale was granted on the 23rd April 1849 in equal parts to Henry Phipps, William Phipps and John Morgan, all of Whitecroft.  A pit was to be sunk near a place called Bellington Gate south of Parkend Church and by the side of the old Birches Branch of the Severn & Wye tramroad.  The grant was for the coal in the Oaken Hill Delf and all veins above it.  The gale was added to in August 1850 when the coal in the trenchard seam and all other veins under Beaufort Engine were granted to George Phipps of Pillowell.
Trouble had, however, begun for Messrs. Phipps and Morgan.  In January 1850 they applied to the Crown for permission to sink a pit and erect a steam engine.  This authority was vital to their interests as gaining it was a condition of a proposed sale to a Thomas Stone of Bristol.  The application was turned down.  The Crown gave the reasons that the position chosen for the site of the steam engine would be injurous to plantations and annoying to Parkend Church and parsonage - not to mention the Crowns Deputy Surveyors house at Whitemead Park!  It was then pointed out to the Crown that the Parkend Iron Furnaces were nearer the park and the parsonage and also that the Great Western Colliery (Venus & Jupiter) was nearer the park than the intended works.  The Crown countered by saying that the smoke from the engine would be too much ‘in addition’.  In April the galees stated that they were prepared to erect an engine with ‘smoke consuming furnaces’ and that as it would be sited in a hollow it would be hardly visable.  The following month they were applying to open the gale, the idea of a steam engine abandoned.
As already mentioned the permission to erect a steam engine was a vital condition of the proposed sale and without it Stone refused to carry the purchase through.  He was taken to court for completion of contract in which the galees were obviously successful as in March 1854 Stone was stating that he had purchased the gale and was wishing to open it.  By 1859 Stone had disposed of the concern to Joseph Cookson, the Chairman of the Severn & Wye who also made no progress with the Crown in regard to opening the gale.  G.B. Keeling of the Severn & Wye wrote several times to the Gaveller complaining of the obstructive policy which was stopping the legal opening of a gale.  In November 1870, when the owner was James Cookson following the death of Joseph in 1867, it was stated that the gale could be opened by pits sunk on the open forest rather than in part of Whitemead Park.
The gale continued in the Cookson family until in July 1907 Mrs. Cookson accepted £700 for the gale from the Princess Royal Collieries Co. Ltd. although a value of £1,750 had been put upon it.
[See Princess Royal ]