 Thomas Brown, a Scottish pastoralist who owned the central and eastern part of the valley, himself opened two coal mines (Esk Creek and Eskbank); he also sold his southerly portions (54 and 87 in the original parish of Lett) to Bathurst entrepreneurs who established Lithgow Valley Colliery (LVC) in 1872-3.The three principal colliery companies in Lithgow all diversified in the later 1870s