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A day at Gascoigne Wood Mine.

My thanks to Neil Rowley for providing all the information in this post. This is an article that Neil wrote for a mining history society a few years ago. He has kindly shared ‘A Day in the Life of the Selby Complex’ from when he was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine.

A Day in the Life of the Selby Complex

Wednesday 29^th May 1996

Gascoigne Wood Mine 1996

Cable Belt Inspection

Underside of ASL conveyor showing spillage

Map 1

Approximate Location of Working Faces and Main Conveyors in May 1996 (Surface/Underground correlation is by personal estimate and is for general interest only)

Area covered by Planning permission approximately 100 square miles

Introduction

Whilst clearing out my garage recently I found a folder of reports dating from 1996. At the time I was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine. The reports relate to the daily operations of the Selby Coalfield as seen from the control room at Gascoigne Wood.

I feel that these reports give good insight into the day to day working of a huge industrial complex which is now quickly receding into history.

The complex was made up of five producing mines with one common coal clearance system which brought the coal to the surface at Gascoigne Wood. Map 1 is adapted from an early brochure illustration and shows the general layout. Note that this early base map shows the East Coast Main Line running north/south through the centre of the mining area. Before coal production commenced, the railway was rerouted to the west of the production area to avoid subsidence issues, an example of the grand scale of the project. When I commenced my employment at the complex in 1980 I was told that it should have a life of 25 years, a surprisingly accurate prediction as final closure occurred in 2005.

All coal production from the complex at this time was from the Barnsley seam and the mining system employed was mainly retreating longwall.

The Reports

Each individual mine in the complex would have its own detailed daily reports but as Gascoigne Wood was the point at which all coal came to the surface to be prepared and dispatched, the GW reports needed to contain some basic information from each of the producing mines in order to enable fair allocation back to the individual mines of tons produced. Their operating budgets depended on it!

I chose a date of 29.5.1996 at random to illustrate the operation and sheer size of the complex. At the time the complex was owned by RJB Mining. Privatisation of the industry having taken place in late 1994.

Report 1 is the Daily Production Record for this date.

Safety was taken very seriously and reports generally commenced with this aspect.

It can be seen that there had been one minor accident at Gascoigne Wood during the day. A man had received an injury to the roof of his mouth from a sharp object. This somewhat unusual incident would have been discussed in some detail at the Manager’s morning meeting.

Then on to the production reports.

Wistow Mine had three producing longwall faces on this date. H92s was at the deeper end of the Wistow take and was of conventional length. H74s was shallower and hence shorter to control subsidence to within agreed limits. H134s was very short. Hence H92 could achieve 15.8 strips in the day, 74 managed 17.4 but 134 amassed 30 very short strips.

Riccall Mine had two faces. H478s was successfully mining an area to the south of Riccall village. H504s had just come into production a couple of weeks earlier. This may account for the lower than expected number of strips. It was located to the east of the shafts under Skipwith common.

Stillingfleet Mine had two faces both performing well. H302s was mining the area to the west of Escrick Brick Works. H266s was mining the area to the South of Naburn Lock.

Whitemoor Mine was operating two faces. H641s was to the south of the Whitemoor shaft pillar and H632s was north of North Duffield village. The low number of strips combined with the high ash content that we see from other reports suggests that the faces were in faulted areas and suffering from roof control problems. Depth below the surface of these workings was approximately 900m.

North Selby Mine was the deepest of the Selby mines and was producing from two faces. H906s was to the East of the shafts working at a depth of over 1000m. H856s was near Deighton village. Both seem to have been performing pretty well on this date. As a rough estimate I would say that the coal from H906s face had an underground journey of over 20Km through the conveyor system of the complex before it reached the surface at Gascoigne Wood.

Total mineral transported to the surface via the Gascoigne Wood conveyors on this day was well over 60,000 tonnes. This was pretty much a normal daily total for this period.

Total saleable coal leaving in the trains was 50,641 tonnes

1996 was the 5^th successive year where annual saleable output exceeded 10 million tonnes. Profit for the complex in 1996 was reported to be £24.464 million.

Sadly the good times were coming to an end and production was to gradually fall away in the coming years as the better mining areas became worked out.

Report 1

Report 2 –Delay analysis for coal clearance systems 29.05.96

The two spine tunnels coming to the surface at Gascoigne Wood each contained a different type of conveyor.

The South Spine contained the ASL – named after Anderson Strathclyde Ltd, the designer and manufacturer. It was a 12.2 Km long steel cord conveyor running at high speed and capable of over 2000tph.

The North Spine contained the Cable Belt. The cable belt consisted of a very flat profile carrying surface resting on two steel cables. It was slightly earlier technology than the ASL and the flat profile gave rise to quite a lot of spillage, especially if one of the pulleys supporting the cables had a bearing failure, in which case the vibration caused the coal to be shaken off the conveyor. It normally ran at 1000tph but when demand for coal clearance was not so great, it was shut down and the ASL was used alone.

South Spine Delays

The first group of delays with the prefix ROM (Run of Mine) relate to stoppages of surface conveyors downstream of the ASL which in turn cause the stoppage of the main spine conveyors. CO7c was a common offender in this respect. It was the oversize conveyor feeding the barrel washer infeed stockpile and prone to large pieces of stone or timber causing misalignment or blocked chute.

Many of the other delays refer to belt torn protection being operated at various locations. B2 being Wistow bunker, B6 Stillingfleet Bunker etc. The belt torn probe was a wire stretched from side to side beneath the belt. If a piece of rubber was trailing from the belt then it would hit the wire and stop the conveyor. The conveyor was running at high speed so would take a little while to stop and the bunker operator would have some distance to walk to find the offending piece and cut it off.

Rollers were changed by a belt patrol team who did their inspection from a train travelling alongside the conveyor. The inspector was pretty much lying down in the vehicle so that he could see the underside of the conveyor.

Later in the evening problems start to occur with a steel cord coming out of the belt. This would need to have been chopped off and its position within the 24Km of belting noted for later vulcanized repair.

North Spine Delays

This conveyor was affected by the surface conveyor stoppages in the same way as the South.

The report shows several pulley changes and a rope off pulleys incident which were speedily dealt with. The numbers following the entry refer to the stand number on the conveyor structure. The last entry of “portal bubble trip” refers to a detector which was looking to ensure that the rubber belt was lying flat down on the cables. This consisted of a wire stretched at right angles above the carrying surface which would stop the conveyor if it was hit by anything. The trip wire had probably been hit by a large lump of coal on the conveyor and did not indicate a problem with the conveyor belting itself.

Report 2

Report 3 Gascoigne Wood Manager’s Morning Report

This is the summary of the day’s activities that landed on the Manager’s desk the following morning and a summary would be reported on to the Group Director.

The information in the first section predominantly comes from the Westerland feeders delivering onto the spine conveyors from each of the bunkers that the producing mines fed into. The feeders were wide slow flat conveyors of known bed depth and controllable speed which gave a pretty accurate record of tonnage throughput. Mounted over each feeder was a sensor picking up natural gamma radiation from the material passing beneath. Shale gives off more gamma than coal and so with careful calibration the percentage ash could be determined.

Coal from Whitemoor had to pass through Riccall Mine before it reached the spine conveyors and similarly North Selby coal had to pass through Stillingfleet. The ash monitors and weighers for these mines were located on the boundary between the mines and so were not under neutral control. This was often a source of much dispute between the mine managers, each seeking to gain maximum tons and hence income for their mine.

As a check on these ash measurements the GW Deputy Manager regularly visited the individual mines to do a rough face survey, measuring thickness of coal cut, amount of stone falling from the roof and thickness of floor dirt taken. This was a part of the job which I always found very interesting. These findings could then be used to adjust the ash content should it be necessary.

Belt weighers can vary greatly in accuracy so tonnage arriving at surface was adjusted to bring it in line with known weight dispatched over the certified weighers on the railway and changes in stock levels.

To reduce ash levels to those acceptable to the power stations a proportion of the coal needed to be washed and then re mixed back in. At this time there were two washing plants operating – The barrel washers which treated the larger material and the dense medium cyclone and spiral plant which treated the medium sizes. The undersize went straight through to form the basis of the blend. Tonnages into each process can be seen on the sheet.

The ash level to the power stations was running at 17.1% and we would be looking to bring this down a little by the quarter end. The customer paid on calorific value rather than per ton so a slightly high ash content would result in a lower return per ton. A factor critical to the customer was the handleability of the product. The last thing they wanted was coal sticking in the wagons and holding up the discharge of trains. Poor handleability was related to some extent by moisture content, which on this day was nicely in spec at 10.7, but could be more significantly affected by the MRF content.

MRF stands for Multi Roll Filtercake. This was produced by squeezing the moisture out of the finer material in the barrel washer plant. MRF had a good coal content but also contained fine clay particles which could cause handleability problems. It was obviously in everyone’s interest to send as little of this material to the tip as possible but blending it into the product had to be done cautiously to avoid sticky trains. A very fine balancing act.

A small amount of house coal was also being produced.

Three trains of stone left site to be disposed with domestic waste in Wakefield, the rest of the discard was disposed of in a very carefully constructed tip facility on site, with MRF cake enclosed in cells of coarser material. HAU stands for High Ash Undersize, of which 183,000 tons were on stock waiting to be blended back into the product when ash content from the mine reduced.

Report 3

Conclusion

This has been a very brief view of the activities taking place on this fairly typical day in 1996. The sheer size of the operation is clear to see with over 60,000 tonnes of mineral being brought to the surface and over 50,000 tonnes being dispatched to power stations throughout the country in a single day.

As with many mining projects, the geology of the area proved to be not as straightforward as anticipated in the early planning stages causing production to slow in later years. The basic design of the complex required high throughput to achieve cost efficiency and falling tonnages resulted in a rising cost per ton, leading to eventual closure in 2005.

Hopefully these reports give a glimpse of the coalfield operating at its designed output level, as it did throughout much of the 1990s, and give some indication of the tremendous engineering achievements and degree of human endeavour that made up this very bold project.

***

Again, many thanks to Neil Rowley who was Deputy Manager at Gascoigne Wood Mine and who provided the information and memories in this post.

Royal visit to Riccall Mine

The official opening of the Selby Coalfield took place on December 7th 1989. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were due to visit Riccall and visit H443s, a working coal face at the mine. On the day however, HRH The Queen was ill and HRH Prince Phillip attended alone.

The visit was seen as a recognition of all the hard work that went in to the whole project. His Royal Highness was introduced to British Coal Directors and the Mine Manager, the late Stuart Sumnall. He was shown into the concourse where he met with local school children and members of the mining staff. He was taken into the lamp room, had a tour of the surface, and then went underground. Afterwards there was hospitality and speeches with officials, miners and their families. A successful event, and a lasting memory and endorsement of the success of the mine.

The British Film Institute has kindly allowed me to show this video of the Royal Visit on my blog and I am sure many of you will be very interested to see this.

Many thanks to the British Film Institute for their kind permission to use this video and for their agreement for me to show this in four parts because of the upload limitations of this site.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

My memories of the day

The face was prepared with cover plates fitted over the pan side cable and hose brackets, to ensure that no accidents happened during the visit.

A roof bolting demonstration was given by Dennis Nichols and an Anderson Strathclyde AM500 shearer demonstration was given by Terry Armitage and Phil Matthews. The deputy in charge of the district for the visit was Snowy Varley. During the visit, only a skeleton staff were allowed underground. I remember that three electricians, from our team, were at strategic points to ensure electrical problems were quickly dealt with, one being in the pit bottom substation, one at the main gate end substation and myself as the electrician in charge of the face.

I was waiting in the tailgate when I got a call to say that the face A.F.C. would not start. A very concerned and agitated undermanager appeared in the tailgate to ask me to go and see what was wrong. I quickly went to the maingate to see what the problem was. A power supply fuse had blown in the BFS switchgear supplying the panzer and it would not start. I replaced the fuse quickly and thankfully the A.F.C. started. The visit went ahead as planned with no further problems.

The event was recorded in a souvenir issue of the Coal News.

and we were all given a pit check along with a Royal Visit mug to commemorate the visit.

Qualter, Hall Engineering and the Selby Coalfield: Wistow No. 1 Winder.

The second of the two winders to be installed at Wistow Mine was a tower mounted, six rope, friction winder (Koepe). This winder was installed over the downcast shaft and had a single cage with counter balance weights. The cage was designed to carry 170 men on two decks or 16 tonnes of materials. To give some idea how large the cage at Wistow Mine was, a complete Dosco Dintheader heading machine could be loaded and transported underground on the cage.

They were the largest cages in the UK and weighed nearly 24.7 tonnes.

Below is the pictorial history of the installation and commissioning of the No1 winder.

The cage had to be manufactured and transported in two parts due to its sheer size.

The final pictures are the fitting and commissioning of the six ropes on to the 24.7 tonne cage and counterweight.

The cages on the friction winders in the Selby Coalfield were all tilting deck type. The middle section of the cage has central pivot points on both sides of the deck. Two hydraulic rams are mounted to the lower and middle deck and when operated the middle section is tilted and the load is held at an angle in the cage. This allows loads of up to 8.2 metres long. This system allowed the long, square section girder work, used in the underground bunker areas to be transported safely within the cage without the need to sling underneath the cage as used at many collieries.

Many thanks to Lisa Butterworth, Marketing Manager and George Wild, Company Secretary at Qualter, Hall and Co Limited for their time and for the use of the amazing photographs from their archive.

Selby before the Miners Strike in 1984.

Below is a very interesting historical film called ‘Selby: the saving face for coal’ about the perception of the future of the industry in 1984 by the NCB and the NUM. In the film the Selby Coalfield is referred to as a big part of the future of the industry but the actual truth of what happened to Selby, and the rest of the UK mining industry, preceding the year long strike, was very different.

At the time, Wistow was the only mine producing coal in the complex and the film refers to the initial problems encountered on A1s, the first working face and the subsequent replanning of the pit.

Selby: the saving face for coal

Memories and Artworks of Karl Jarrett.

The use of non intrinsically safe and non flameproof cameras and photographic equipment is illegal except in very controlled circumstances in UK coal mines. This is due to the occurrence of methane gas, which is an extremely explosive gas. All electrical equipment used in a mine is tested and certified for use in this environment.

Whilst working underground as a faceworker, heading man and later a deputy at Whitemoor Mine, Karl Jarrett sketched his underground environment and the jobs he worked on in his note book. You can see from the artworks below that he captured the very difficult, hot and dangerous conditions we all worked in.

Below are the memories of Karl when he worked at Fryston Colliery and Whitemoor Mine.

I started at Fryston Colliery in 1980 aged 16. My job was supplying materials to the coal faces and headings in the Beeston seam.
In 1982, aged 18, I completed my coalface training. I then became part of a heading team developing the underground roadways.

Changing shearer cable on 33s. 1982.

Fryston Colliery snap time stopping the belts. 1982.

Holman Borer, Fryston Colliery 86s heading. 1982.

Making stub heading for area borers in 76s Tailgate. Fryston Colliery. 1983.

During 1984-85 I was on strike with the N.U.M. and went picketing almost every day.

Our brave Boys in Blue. 1984.

In 1985 when the year long strike finished we all marched back to work behind the Fryston Branch Union Banner.
In the same year the Beeston seam closed due to a fire on 76s face. Due to the loss of the Beeston seam I started working in an advanced heading on 25s coalface in the Flockton seam.

Carrying a Cruciform on 25s. 1985.

In 1986 Fryston Colliery closed and I was transferred to Gascoigne Wood on loan from Whitemoor Mine for 8 weeks.

When I transferred to Whitemoor Mine in 1986 I became a roadheader machine driver working as part of a heading team.

Holing through to Riccall Mine. 1986.

Tank slit at Whitemoor Mine. 1986.

Whitemoor/ Riccall Mine Connection. 1987.

Dalek at Riccall Bunker. 1988.

Whitemoor dragging beam. 1988.

In 1988 I completed my Rescue Training and became a part time Mines Rescue Brigadesman at Whitemoor Mine.
In 1990 I started working on coal faces as a Shearer driver.

Whitemoor Mine H624s face salvaging hydraulic props. 1992.

Tailgate from Hell. Whitemoor Mine. 1995

I completed my command supervisors (deputies) qualification and worked as Deputy for about a year before retiring due to health problems in 1998.

All my mining drawings are real places where I’ve worked and events I’ve seen or been part of and have been drawn from memory and sketches I did at the time.

Karl

Many thanks to Karl for giving me his time, his memories and access to his amazing artworks.

The development of Whitemoor Mine.

The shafts at Whitemoor were the second deepest in the Selby Coalfield. Number 1 shaft was 931m and Number 2 shaft was 941m deep. During the sinking of the Number 2 a European record of 131.2 metres of fully concrete lined shaft was achieved in a month. After completion of shaft sinking in June 1985 the underground infrastructure to develop the mine, pit bottom rope haulage system and coal clearance system was started. Whitemoor was the only satellite mine in the Selby Coalfield to use a rope haulage for transport of equipment and for manriding purposes. This was due to the pit bottoms being deeper than the Barnsley seam. Four, 250m drifts at a 1 in 4 incline were developed by Thyssens mining contractors to access the main lateral roadways in the Barnsley seam. The first two faces to be developed east of the pit bottom were H01Bs which was 200m long and was approximately 800m from the pit bottom and 240m long, H02Bs, 1050m from the pit bottom. Both faces were taken off the East Return Roadway. The faces were worked from South to North. Four lateral roadways were developed to the east of the mine and a single conveyor roadway driven to the west connection with Riccall Mine. The conveyor roadway had the rope haulage installed for manriding and transport running east and west sides of the mine.

A 6.6kv, 750kw double drive, steel cord conveyor identical to the one installed at Riccall Mine, ran 3000m from the Riccall Connection at the west of the mine to the faces at the east of the mine passing through the pit bottom area. The connection to Riccall Mine South Conveyor Road was made in November 1986 using a Dosco Mk2A Revised Hydraulics Roadheader with a further connection to the South Return Roadway made in December 1987. An 8m high, 80m long Drive House and a Bunker area were created at the connection for the Whitemoor coal production to start in January 1988. This conveyor loaded onto the Riccall Mine Steel Cord Conveyor.

Plan showing Whitemoor and Riccall Mine Steel Cord connection.

The next face to be worked starting production in 1989 was H621s at the west of the mine. This face loaded straight onto the Riccall Mine Steel Cord Conveyor. H622s and H624s were the next two faces at the west of the mine starting production in 1990 with developments underway at the east of the mine for H615s face which started production in 1991. During the production of H624s the face hit some faulted areas which created cavities needing remedial work. During the remedial work, the face was shuttered and straw was used as packing along with pumped liquid cement. This system was used to consolidate the face through the faulted areas. Very soon after the use of the straw infill on H624s face, H444s face at the south side of Riccall Mine became affected with mice. The first time it was apparent that we had the thieving rodents was snap wrappings were found torn and food stolen. Eventually the mice were seen all around the workings at Riccall Mine.

Mice were always a problem at the older pits due to ponies being used underground. The associated straw, hay and food usage meant the mice were inadvertently brought underground in these bales of bedding and hay feed bales. We could only assume the same thing happened with the straw packing bales used on H624s face.

Plan showing faces worked at the West of Whitemoor Mine adjacent to Riccall Mine.

In 1991 the face headings were developed for H626s and H623s, the last two faces at the west of Whitemoor Mine. These face were adjacent to the faces worked at the south and south west of Riccall Mine. H623s started production in 1991 with H626s starting production in 1992. The lateral roadway to H626s was extended to the west and made a connection with the Riccall Mine South West Trunk as an intake roadway for the faces worked in that area. H626s finished production in 1993 and production was transferred to the east of the mine.

The east side workings were extremely hot due to the depth of the seam at nearly 1000m. Floor heave and weighting was also a problems as the mine progressed further eastwards.

When the East Conveyor lateral roadways were completed and H615s face was producing coal, the lateral roadways to the north and south for the next phase of developments were started.

The North East Lateral headings were driven 1000m to the north where a junction was created. The headings then developed 2500m towards the eastern limit of planning permission for the next five coal faces starting with H630s in 1993. The faces at this part of the mine used Longwall International face equipment and Joy 390kw 4LS Shearers. H631s started production in 1994 followed by H632s in 1995. These three faces worked from north to south. The next face panel was not worked and the next two faces, H634s and H635s were developed towards the east boundary of the coalfield at the River Derwent working on an east to west orientation. H635s face was the last face at Whitemoor Mine which started production 20th February 1998 and finished production on the 8th June 1998.

The South East Lateral headings were driven 2000m to access the next five coal faces starting with H616s in 1992. This area of the mine used Longwall International face equipment and BJD 300kw Ace shearers with face lengths of 210m. H617s was the next face in production which started in 1993 with H619s, H620s starting production in the next two consecutive years. The coal to the south of H620s was never developed. The last coal face in the south east of the mine was H641s which was worked west to east. This face was 235m in length with face gate length of 1850m. This face started production in 1996 and was completed in 1997.

Whitemoor Mine showing all the faces worked.

All the faces at the east of the mine used roofbolts as primary supports and were developed using JCM 12 Continuous miners. All lateral roadways were developed using 58 tonne, 393kw Dosco LH1300 or Anderson Strathclyde RH22 Roadheaders. Contractors were used to carry out development and salvage work from 1993 with British Coal / RJB Mining workers employed to work the coal faces. Whitemoor Mine achieved it’s weekly record of 64,000 tonnes in February 1993 and produced it’s annual record production of 2,210,000 tonnes of coal in 1994.

During the 10 years of production Whitemoor Mine used diesel and battery free steered vehicles along with diesel and battery locomotives along with the rope haulages to supply the underground equipment and for manriding.

Transferring; Moving or travelling?

When the Selby Coalfield was ready to be staffed a transfer system was created to ensure the smooth transition of skilled mining men from closing collieries in North Yorkshire. A phased closure programme of pits in Wakefield and Castleford created the first wave of men to move to the new Selby Coalfield started in 1979 and continued in the late 1980s. The men who were asked to stay in the industry from the closing collieries were given options to either travel or move house to the Selby area.

The first option at some of the closing Wakefield collieries was to travel by coach. This mode of transport to the pit had always been an option around mining areas for a very long time. We called it the Pit Paddy in the Barnsley area and it ran thousands of miners to work every day for decades on the Tracky buses (Yorkshire Traction).

The Selby Mines were a substantial distance from the closing collieries so privately contracted coaches were used instead of the public services buses used previously.

Another option for the transferring men was to travel in their own cars to the new coalfield. A payment was made for the extra travelling distance, in miles, between your existing Colliery or from your home which ever was the nearest to the new Selby Mine of your choice. This option was very popular due to the flexibility it gave you to work overtime especially on the night shifts. Many men used this option for the life of the coalfield.

The third option available was to up sticks and move house to the Selby area. The criterias were that you had to move to a home within a certain distance from your new pit and that the mortgage or rent at your new house was greater than the amount you were already paying for your old house. The amount you received was up to £48 per week with a further one off payment for resettlement which we called Carpet and Curtain Money. You were paid the mortgage assistance for 5 years. The money paid reduced by 25% for the next 3 years until year eight when it ceased. Some men I knew used this option to rent a house from the new housing association estates to see if they settled in the area. If they decided it wasn’t for them they could move back and restart the travelling allowance again. Hundreds of miners and families moved to Selby into the new houses being built in the villages near to the new mines. Selby, Thorpe Willoughby, Hambleton, Brayton, Barlby, North Duffield, Riccall and Hemingbrough had new housing developments and were all very popular with the mining families. Sherburn in Elmet, Cawood and Wistow were popular with miners transferring to Gascoigne Wood and Wistow Mines as they were sited west of the River Ouse.

One difference between the villages to the East and the West of the River Ouse was there was no mains gas supplies in the East but a big bonus was you had no Selby Toll bridge to contend with on afternoon shift on market day.

Selby Mines Rescue Station.

These are the memories of Ron Bruce, Selby Executive Committee (Estates)

“I have been recalling my memories of the Mines Rescue Station at Selby and rescue facilities were discussed at the Executive Committee Meetings. There were certain statutory regulations regarding the distance from a rescue facility to a coal mine and the Selby Mine sites were outside the parameters of the Wakefield and Doncaster Rescue Stations at Ings Road, Wakefield and Wheatley Hall Road, Doncaster.
A new facility was required so a site at Osgodby on the A63 near to the A19 was selected. This site could serve the Selby coalfield and collieries along the eastern edge of existing coalfield around Pontefract and Doncaster.

I was able to negotiate the purchase of some 4 acres which was sufficient for the Rescue Station and associated houses for some of the Rescue Men and families. This facility was very much ‘State of the Art’ when it was completed in the mid 1980’s especially when compared to the Rescue Station on Ings Road at Wakefield.
Shortly after the opening of the new facility and with the closure of the western collieries around Wakefield, the Wakefield Mines Rescue was decommissioned in 1986 and the site was sold for retail development. A ‘Blue Plaque’ visible from Ings Road marks the location of the former station”.

The Selby Mines Rescue station closed after the Selby Complex finished mining in 2004 and rescue facilities were moved to Kellingley Colliery. The Selby Rescue Station site was sold for housing development. The site is straight opposite the Garden Centre on the A63.

The Rescue Station staff travelled between the old Selby site and the new site at Kellingley Colliery until the changes were completed.

Memories of Ron Bruce.

I have been in contact with Ron Bruce, who was part of the Selby Executive Committee. Ron worked in Estates as part of the committee and was in charge of the land acquisition for the Selby Coalfield Project. Below are some of his memories.

“Before the Selby Coalfield was planned boreholes had to be drilled to find out if the coal seams in this area were of sufficient quality and quantity to start the project. Access to land and the rights to use the land were needed to site the drilling rigs.

The geologists and mining engineers at the North Yorkshire N.C.B. Headquarters always thought that the Barnsley seam was available to the east of the existing coalfield and they were right. When Kellingley Colliery was planned to the East of the existing coalfield in the 1950s, a test boring program for the new mine proved that the Barnsley seam, also known as the Warren House was a workable seam.

Kellingley Colliery never worked the seam as the pit was sunk to work the Silkstone and Beeston seams. Five further boreholes were drilled in the Selby area in the 1960s which proved the existence of the Barnsley seam and the prospects of a new coalfield.

The No.1 Cawood borehole was drilled as part of the Selby Coalfield project in late 1972. This was situated on Ryther Road at Cawood. The contractors for this hole were Cementation Exploration Limited. The small piece of land needed to site the drill rig was 1/5 acre and this land was rented for three months from the farmer, with compensation for crops lasting twelve months. The soil on the site was moved out of the way to create hard standing for the drill rig. When drilling was completed the site was restored back to farm land using the displaced soil. The core sample data was analysed and the results were confirmed on 22 December which proved the Barnsley seam was 10ft 3 inches. A very good start to the project.

Ezra, D. (1976) Coal: Technology for Britain’s future. London: Macmillan (page 99)

Bill Forrest, deputy director (mining) of the North Yorkshire Area of the N.C.B. was in charge of the Selby project. He decided a strategic team was to be created to manage all aspects of the project and was to include Mine Planners, Mining Engineers and Estates. The team was called the Selby Executive Committee. The first job to be carried out was a huge programme of 84 surface boreholes to prove the extent of the seams available for mining. The contractor who carried out this specialist drilling program was Foraky Limited.

During the boring programme all the land acquisitions and temporary borehole sites were through negotiations with the relevant parties. Fortunately the estates team had sufficient site flexibility to proceed on the basis of negotiations without recourse to any time consuming legal procedures.

During the early stages of the borehole drilling program at Selby a major incident happened at Lofthouse Colliery, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, which needed the help of the Selby Executive Team. On the 21st March 1973 an inrush of water from old mine workings happened on South 9B coal face at Lofthouse Colliery. Rescue teams arrived from all over the area to commence rescue operations. Alongside the underground operations a plan was devised to drill a rescue borehole from the surface into the area where the men were situated. A drill rig was needed urgently to carry out the work. The nearest drilling rig and team was at Sherburn in Elmet sinking an exploratory borehole very near to the future site of Gascoigne Wood, one of the new Selby mines. Under the supervision of the Selby Coalfield Executive Team the drilling team withdrew the drill and made the rig ready for transport. Access to the land adjacent to Batley Road at Kirkhamgate near the Lofthouse rescue borehole and to the borehole site itself was acquired through the landowner very quickly and a hard standing area was created under the supervision of Ron Bruce (Estates) from the Selby Executive Team. The drilling rig and team were transferred and were ready for drilling within 14 hours of the inrush. Sadly the rescue operations were in vain due to the extremely dangerous conditions underground and a further inrush being imminent. The borehole was abandoned 200 feet from completion.

Below is the memorial in remembrance to the seven men lost in the Lofthouse Disaster on 21st March 1973. It is very near to the rescue borehole site at the junction of Wrenthorpe Lane and Batley Road.

The mine sites land acquisitions.

When the 1975 Public Inquiry was completed and planning permission was granted in April 1976 the job of acquiring the sites for the mines began.

Gascoigne Wood site was acquired partly from British Rail (the former marshalling yard site) and partly from a local farmer and was initially 164 acres. Further areas were acquired from this farmer when the coal preparation plant was installed lagoon and tipping areas were required.

Wistow site was acquired from a local farmer and fortunately it was on the market at the time. It was the smallest mine site in the coalfield at only 29 acres.

Stillingfleet site was acquired from Escrick Park Estates together with land required for access and improvements to the highway connection to the A19. The site position meant building a new two lane road from the mine site to the Cawood Road junction. The site was 63 acres.

The 100 acre North Selby site was acquired from a local farmer and the whole farm was purchased since the land remaining was not a viable undertaking. The farmer was able to purchase a new farm to the east outside the coalfield area. Land for the two lane access roadway to this site, which was over a mile in length, was acquired from Escrick Park Estates. In addition at North Selby a racehorse stud complex at Chequer Hall was acquired because of possible noise problems during blasting and drilling operations in the development stages. This area together with the balance of the farm land acquired with the shaft site were granted on tenancy to an existing British Coal farm tenant who gave up his tenancy on a small farm at Cleckheaton and moved to Escrick with his Shire Horses. When completed the North Selby Mine was 80 acres.

Riccall and Whitemoor sites were both acquired from a local farmer under a single purchase and he was able to acquire land to the east outside the coalfield area. Riccall Mine site was 64 acres and Whitemoor Mine site was 67 acres.

During the development of the early underground tunnels of the Selby Mines, Selby District Council decided to charge the N.C.B. rates for the mine roadway development phase due to the coal being extracted during tunnelling. The N.C.B. appealed these rates as the coal was part of the development. This issue was taken to a Lands Tribunal in London and was resolved in favour of the N.C.B.

The Royal Visit December 1989.

In late 1989 Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh were due to officially open the Selby Coalfield. As part of the royal visit they were to visit Riccall Mine and go underground onto H443s coalface. Changing facilities of a very high standard were expected for the royal visit and as the existing pit head baths were not quite up to royal standards a new facility was built. Due to the great expense of building a shower facility for one purpose the building was to have a second life as a sports pavilion and rugby pitch. A three month window was given to complete the new changing and showering area with totally separate areas for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Ron Bruce and the estates department had the building designed, drawings made and land made available. Needless to say it was completed on time. Sadly the Queen did not attend due to illness. The building was eventually used as a weight training gym, changing area and football pitch for the Riccall Miners.”

It’s always good to speak with experts who contributed greatly to this amazing project and my sincere thanks go to Ron Bruce who contributed the information in this post. Without people like Ron being happy to speak with me, these memories would be lost forever.

The Public Inquiry April to June 1975.

A public inquiry allows everyone with anything to say, a forum in which to say it. And there was certainly a lot of people with a lot to say about the plans for the Selby Coalfield. Some were in favour, some were against, and likely, many were undecided.

Some described the plans as the ‘rape of our countryside’, others thought ‘a coalmine will be a goldmine’. Anyway, no matter the side, the 2 April 1975 was when it all began in the Museum Hall on Park Lane, Selby, attracting a great deal of interest from the public. (Ezra, 1976, p114)

An office was rented, which was the N.C.B. public information centre on Finkle Street, Selby. Anyone who had any question about the project could raise issues or get answers to questions raised about the project.

There were representatives at the inquiry from the NCB, from North Yorkshire County Council, Selby District Council, Yorkshire Water Authority, British Railways, The National Farmers Union etc. etc. Each group had its own concerns, the water authority was worried about drainage and potential flooding for instance, and there was a massive concern generally about subsidence.

Mr Eric Orchard, a world expert on subsidence explained that in the past there had been little thought given to the potential damage caused by subsidence; houses had collapsed and fields had flooded. Today though was very different, coal miners were more informed and the whole process was much more scientific. Orchard went on the explain the methods that would be used to control the effects of subsidence and reassured the inquiry that there would be very little damage. Any repairs would be minimal and the NCB would pay for them.

Orchard’s reassurance went so far but didn’t 100% calm the worry around all the medieval churches and historic buildings. However, the NCB with its duty of care to these buildings, believed that the systems planned for mining the coal would protect the churches and similar important buildings.

But what about Selby Abbey? The risk was too great. An architect looked into the details of the Abbey’s foundations and found that any changes in the water table levels (something that could happen with mining) would threaten the structure of the Abbey. The NCB agreed to leave a pillar of coal underneath the Abbey as support but the size of the pillar was under question too. Selby Council was worried about the sewers which could crack if subsidence occurred, they were also concerned about industrial buildings and schools and hospitals so they wanted a larger supporting pillar, not just underneath the Abbey but under the whole town.

A larger support, the NCB argued would lose them nearly £100 million in lost coal. so it was left to the Government to make the final decision on the size of the Selby pillar.

Local people, especially farmers, had their own worries, flooding being a top concern. One farmer thought that the NCB could turn ‘an agricultural area into a duckpond’. The NCB didn’t deny that there could be adverse effects but agreed to put right any damage and to pay compensation to those effected. (Ezra, 1976, p121)

There were ordinary home owners too who were concerned about damage to their properties. The NCB agreed that in the event of damage they would decide whether to repair or compensate but said that severe cases were unlikely.

There were more issues raised; naturalists were concerned about delicate ecosystems; residents were concerned about heavy lorry traffic; there were unpopular changes planned to reroute the railway line, the winding towers were going to be taller than expected and be a blot on the landscape, there were anxieties about massive migration of workers to the mines and the labour force depletion from other areas. All agreed that mining ‘ghettoes’ were to be avoided. Two village councils even refused to have a mine named after the local village hence Whitemoor Mine and North Selby Mines.

The inquiry lasted for thirty eight working days. The Secretary of State gave his permission on 1 April 1976, a year after the opening of the inquiry, and even though not everyone was pleased about it, there was a feeling that Selby should see the best in it and make it a successful venture. One of his conditions was that pillars of coal must be left under central Selby.

Ezra, D. (1976) Coal: Technology for Britain’s future. London: Macmillan.