It was a lovely sunny January day in Selby when we went to visit the Selby Coalfield Memorial. It is sited in Bondgate, a few minutes walk just outside the town centre. The area is lovely to walk with or without a dog. Lovely monument to remember all the men who worked at Selby with every mine represented including the Mines Rescue Service.
A brilliant three dimensional map of the complex shows the extent and true scale of the Selby Coalfield.
As we were in Selby taking some photographs for a post on the Selby Coalfield memorial, I suggested to my wife that we go and have a look at the Wistow Mine site. We arrived at the entrance and I walked a few metres into the old carpark. After a couple of minutes I got the attention of a bloke doing some ground work on the site. I explained to him who I was and what I wanted to do. He gave me a phone number for the owner of the site. I called Richard, who kindly gave me permission to take the photographs I wanted for my blog.
The rear of the boiler house.
Workshop entrance.
Electricians snap cabin door with the obligatory fruit stickers.
The last calendar. 2004 closure year.
The transformer and mine reactor caged areas.
Workshops.
Transformer cages.
No1 shaft cap with methane drainage valve.
Pit yard looking towards workshops.
Walking around the site, which now has no power, made me realise how long it was and how things have changed since the Selby Coalfield was producing coal. The site is now used for trailer storage and is under renovation, with members of staff on ground works and 24 hours security.
The dogs are owned by Damien, who kindly escorted us around, so we were safe, but we still gave the five guard dogs at various points a wide birth. What struck me, as it did on a visit to Riccall Mine recently, is how quiet the place is now.
I would like to thank Damien for his assistance and his escort of the site and Richard for his kind permission to access the site.
When Riccall Mine closed as a producing mine in October 2004 many changes had to happen on the surface and its buildings to change the use of the site. When the Selby Coalfield was conceived and planned, the surface infrastructure was planned to be demolished and returned back to farming land but this did not happen. UK Coal persuaded the the planning authorities that the 104 acre site could be used as a multi use, mixed industrial, warehouse and office space after specific areas and buildings were demolished and made safe.
Harworth Estates acquired the site from UK Coal during the transition period in the coal industry and the A19 Business Park was created on the site.
Entrance from old car park
Probably the biggest task on a closed mine site was to make the mine entrances safe. The next major job was to demolish and clear the winder towers and winders.
After discussions, UK Coal persuaded, the then Coal Authority, that due to the high engineering standard and strength of the Selby Coalfield mine shafts that the integrity would ensure the shafts would last 150 years. This meant that the shafts did not need to be filled, at great expense, but a heavily engineered cap in each of the shafts, small plug and further cap on the surface would make the shaft entry secure.
The first task was to remove all power and communication cables, pipes, winder ropes and guide ropes to ensure the integrity and strength of the seal into the shaft wall. In the case at Riccall Mine, all the above mentioned items were cleared to a level below the area in the shafts below the air drift entrance at the No1 downcast shaft and the fan drift at No2 upcast shaft. The 24 ft diameter shaft had pockets (holes) cut into the concrete of the shaft wall at various points. This was a very difficult job due to the incredible strength of the concrete shaft linings used at Riccall. Large girders were installed across the shaft and fitted into these pockets and bolted together with other jointing pieces to create a huge, high strength lattice work for the steel cap base to sit on.
Once the steel cap was installed, the shaft air drifts and shaft tops were filled with a clean limestone aggregate and poured concrete to a point just below surface level. The final stage was to create a concrete shaft top cap over the infill.
No1 downcast shaft cap
No2 upcast shaft cap
The No1 winding tower, No1 winding house, No2 koepe winder and fan house, shown above, were all demolished, using heavy duty equipment, due to the heavily engineered structures, once the caps were fitted on the shafts. The methane plant to the right of the fan house was also decommissioned and the equipment removed.
The entrance to lamproom from No1 shaft.
The photo above shows where the covered area to the No1 shaft top was. It was a large tiled area with bottle filling and cleaning facilities.
The view looking from the pit lane into the pit yard with store building on the right.
The view above shows the store building on the right and the fluidised bed boiler house on the left. In the early 1990s Riccall Mine started using a generator supplied by Dale Engineering. The generator was supplied via the mine’s methane drainage system from the coal faces. The system had to have a filtration unit to remove any dust picked up from the piping of the methane from the face to the surface. The site of the generator is shown below.
View looking onto methane drainage house and generator site.
The view across the pit yard looking onto the electrical workshop, cable store and the mechanical workshop. The stockyard was a huge area to the right of the photo.
The view across the pit yard from the shaftsmens workshop looking onto the mechanical workshop, workshop offices and electrical / cable workshops.
The view from No1 shaft entrance looking at the electrical substation, the site of the No1 winding house and shaftsmens workshop. The No1 shaft cap is on the right.
When you walk around the surface at a closed mine you always remember how busy it was. It is a sad sight and so very quiet. When it was a working mine, men and machinery were moving around at all times of the day and night with the associated noises of fans, winders, moving mine cars and shifts of men chattering at certain times of the day. A sad end to it all.
Information about shaft remediation kindly provided by Dave Scott, a mate who worked at Glasshoughton Colliery, Wistow Mine and Kellingley Colliery.
Selby Superpit 