Finding the Selby Coalfield.

 The Yorkshire Coalfield in 1923

‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland’ CC-BY (NLS)

Mining engineers knew about the richness of the coal seams to the south and south west of Selby. The North Yorkshire area around Pontefract and Castleford had been heavily mined. This area was not developed for the Barnsley seam but for a series of seams ranging from the Stanley Main seam to the Beeston Seam. Test borings were started in 1954 and seven seams were found to be workable. The two most important seams were the Silkstone and the Beeston seams with the Winter, Warren House (closely allied to the South Yorkshire Barnsley seam), Haighmoor with the Stanley Main and Dunsil seams all workable. With this information a new colliery was planned, Kellingley Colliery, the first since 1927. As mentioned in The Doncaster Connection the Doncaster Coalfield, South of Selby, was sunk between 1905 to the 1920s to work the Barnsley seam so a natural progression of this seam would be north towards Selby.
A drilling programme was started in 1964, running for 4 years at Barlow, Camblesforth, Hemingbrough, Whitemoor and Kelfield Ridge to prove the coal reserves and found that the Warren House and Low Barnsley seam, which splits north of Doncaster, merged to form the Barnsley seam, a continuous, high quality seam.
The N.C.B. re-started drilling in 1972 to confirm the extent of the Barnsley seam around Selby. Coal deposits were found at Cawood at 405 yards depth and were 10ft 3inch in section. With this information the N.C.B. started a combined systematic exploration of the area comprising 50 boreholes at 3 to 4 km apart and seismic surveys, a system of small underground explosion to ascertain coal seams and fault formations using shockwaves, to complete the research program. They found 2000 million tonnes of workable seams. The Barnsley seam comprised of a 600 million tonne area of high quality, low ash, low sulphur coal. The seam section was over 3 metres at 300 metres depth at the west to over 2 metres at 1100 metres at the East. The seam continued to the southern edge of York and to the River Derwent to the East.
These findings, along with the Plan for Coal 1974, started the process of the application for planning permission to North Yorkshire County Council on 7th August 1974 to mine the Barnsley seam in the Selby Coalfield.
Bibliography
Arnold, P. and Cole, I., 1981. The Development Of The Selby Coalfield. [Heslington, Yorkshire]: [Selby Research Project, Dept. of Social Administration and Social Work, University of York].