Other interesting stuff – Selby Superpit

Seismic surveying

When the Selby Coalfield was conceived as a mining project in the 1970s one of the first things on the minds of the mining engineers was to prove the actual coal reserves available. They had to somehow ensure that the Selby Coalfield was worth the huge taxpayers investment needed to bring the project to fruition and have the coal actually coming out of the ground at Gascoigne Wood Drift Mine.

The No1 borehole at Cawood was drilled in late 1972. The Cementation Exploration Limited team, under the instruction of Ron Goosens who was a National Coal Board North Yorkshire Area geologist, found the Barnsley Seam to be over 3m thick and of an extremely good grade of coal when the test borings were completed. With the initial findings a strategic team was set up to manage the Selby project under the charge of Bill Forrest who was the deputy director of North Yorkshire Area N.C.B. One of the first job was to carry out a program of 84 exploratory boreholes to prove the size and quality of the seams and in particular the Barnsley Seam in the Selby area.

Drilling proved the geology in a small and specific section, but due to the scale of the undertaking of the enormous new coalfield a very thorough and technically challenging system of underground seismic surveys were required and the data analysed before the mines were planned and developed. The geologist and mining engineers had to survey the 100 square miles of the new coalfield for any geological issues and problems likely to interfere with the planning, designing, any equipment to be used and possible production losses caused by geological faults and intrusions.

The seismic surveying program undertaken in the Selby Coalfield was the biggest ever undertaken in the UK mining industry.

Seismic surveying is carried out by detonating a small charge of approximately 500g of dynamite just below the surface of the area to be surveyed. A system of cables and sensors called geophones are laid out in the surveying area in incremental distances or in grids set at pre-determined angles. When the detonation takes place directional seismic (acoustic) shock waves are generated which emanate through the strata being tested. These waves are measured against time to assess the depth, types and density of the strata encountered when the sound reflects back to the initial source. From this data the types of rock, coal and geological intrusions can be assessed by the geologists. This process is known as geophysical data acquisition.

Reproduced with the permission of © Intellectual property and copyright 2025 The Mining Remediation Authority. All rights reserved

From the above image you can see the number of two dimensional surveys carried out in the Selby Coalfield. Each red line is a seismic survey and could be kilometres in length. The surveys were carried out from 1973 onwards throughout the 70s and 80s.

The Selby Coalfield workings

Underground, in seam, seismic surveying also took place in the 1990s to prove future areas of the mines to be worked. Stillingfleet Mine carried out successful 3D surveys for the same reason in the late 1990s. On the link, at the top of this page, the entire seismic survey data is available to view.

Latch and Batchelor Ltd. Suppliers of steel wire mining ropes.

15 April 2026. Many thanks and kind regards to Mike Liddington, Director of Latch and Batchelor, for organising such a great afternoon and for spending so much of his time from his working day during my visit to the factory. He was a great source of information and made us very welcome. He very kindly gave me a Latch and Batchelor Technical guidance book along with a Ropemans Handbook.

Latch and Batchelor supplied mining ropes to the world mining industry for many decades before the development of the Selby Coalfield and during the 1970s they supplied mine winder ropes to over 300 mines in the UK alone, which were all manufactured at Hay Mills in Birmingham.

Hay Mills factory 1856

Winder rope designs

The company was created by Mr Arthur Latch, Mr T.C. Batchelor and Mr H.H.C. Horsfall to develop locked coil and flattened strand ropes developed by Mr Batchelor in 1884 and 1888. These rope were to become what we know as the modern mine winder ropes used throughout the world. Latch and Batchelor ropes range from tiny stainless steel ropes, used for shark fishing traces, to massive 78mm diameter locked coil dam building ropes.

Rope and fittings display cabinets

Latch and Batchelor made haulage, coal cutter and slusher ropes for mining as well as crane and lift ropes and slings for engineering trades. They also make structural spiral strand ropes used for bridges and masts throughout the world.

The company associated with Latch and Batchelor is Webster and Horsfall, which is over three hundred hundred years old and was formed in 1720 in Penns, Sutton Coldfield. They are a wire drawing company making the finest high tensile wire and pioneered the process of ‘patenting’ developed by James Horsfall. This process of heat treatment, using molten lead at 400°C, as a coolant for the wire, allows wire to be drawn while maintaining ductility and tensility, by changing the molecular structure. This allows drawing to very fine grades.

I visited Mike Liddington, director of Latch and Batchelor Limited at Hay Mills, Birmingham and he very kindly gave me a tour of the factory, offices, archives and the company history display cabinets. Below is some of the information and photographs I took whilst on my visit.

Above is the wire sculptor commissioned for the 300 year anniversary of Webster and Horsfall Limited.

Display cabinet showing the entire rope collection.

The factory at Hay Mills ceased manufacturing ropes in 2015 when Kellingley Colliery, the last deep mine was closed. They now supply locked coil ropes shipped from the Latch and Batchelor factory in Johor Bahru, Malaysia to supply winder ropes to two mines in the UK. They also have factories in Malaysia and Vietnam producing ‘Verope’ crane ropes.

Latch and Batchelor supplied ropes to the Selby Coalfield from day one supplying haulage ropes, winch ropes, winder ropes and specialist lubrications to all the pits. Examples of the shaft ropes supplied at Wistow Mine are listed below.

The tower mounted friction (Koepe) winder used six, 26mm diameter locked coil ropes. The ground mounted double drum winder used two, 51mm diameter locked coil ropes for two cages.

The guide ropes were 45mm diameter.

Balance ropes were 65mm- 75mm.

The 26mm diameter winder ropes weighed 381 kg per 100m and had a breaking strain of 58600 kg.

The 51mm diameter winder ropes weighed 1470kg per 100m and had a breaking strain of 226000 kg.

The 45mm diameter, half locked coil guide ropes weighed 1110 kg per 100m and had a breaking strain of 103000 kg.

The balance ropes weighed over two tonnes per 100m with a breaking strain of 198 tonnes.

All winder ropes were pre stretched at the Birmingham factory before being shipped to the mines.

Rope diameters from Wistow Mine (above) provided by my mate Dave Scott who worked at Wistow Mine.

Rope weights and breaking strains provided from Latch and Batchelor Technical data booklet shown below.

The Latch and Batchelor Technical data and guidance notes booklet.

Above is some of the information on display at the Hay Mills Headquarters.

Thanks again to Mike Liddington for making us welcome and for spending so much time with us.

Surveying teams at the Selby mines

Setting up structures and systems for the management of a multi billion pound project such as the Selby Coalfield was a very complex task. After buying the land for the sites of the five satellite mines and Gascoigne Wood, which was the largest site with two surface drifts, coal handling plant and railway loading facilities, a team of surveyors, which is a statutory role at a mine and surveying staff were needed at each site. They were managed from North Yorkshire Area H.Q. at Allerton Bywater.

The first two pits to be sunk were Gascoigne Wood and Wistow Mines. Gascoigne Wood drift tunnelling started in March 1978, Wistow No2 shaft sinking started Jan 1978 and Wistow No1 started in June 1978. As you can imagine a huge amount of surveying preparatory work was carried out on the sites before any sort of construction could take place.

Initially the surveying of the sites were organised from North Yorkshire Area H.Q. where the Selby Coalfield Project Team was set up. Two surveying teams were created called East Side to survey North Selby, Riccall and Whitemoor mines and the West Side to survey Gascoigne Wood, Wistow and Stillingfleet mines. Each team had a surveyor, assistant surveyor and a linesman team. The head surveyor for the Selby Project was Tony Shirley and deputy surveyor Dennis Aitchison.

As the site construction progressed and the sinking of the two shafts on each site were under way, the workload increased massively.

The teams at each mine were created and included a unit surveyor and two assistant surveyors. These posts were advertised nationally in the NCB as new roles open for promotions of existing members of staff as were the management roles within the complex. A team of linesmen and support staff were transferred from closing collieries. Surveying offices were also built on each site.

The teams were created in the following order:

1. Gascoigne Wood 2. Wistow 3. Stillingfleet 4. Riccall 5. Whitemoor 6. North Selby

When the surveying teams at each of the six individual mines were created the East and West Side teams responsibilities were handed over to the new teams at each mine as the site development progressed. The Selby Project team was wound down in 1984.

Tony Shirley, who had been surveyor in charge of the Selby Project was promoted to North Yorkshire Area chief surveyor and the existing chief surveyor, Eddie Garner retired.

Many thanks to Dave Wilson who provided his time and the information in this post. Dave did his training to be a surveyor at Rothwell Colliery and applied as an assistant surveyor working under unit surveyor Jack Donachie at Stillingfleet Mine. He started in 1984 and was later promoted to deputy surveyor. He worked at Stillingfleet until 2003. He worked in outside industry and returned to mining at U.K. Coal at Howarth Park in the planning department in 2008. As the industry wound down he transferred to Kellingley Colliery as mine planner until closure in Dec 2015. He now works at The Mining Remediation Authority.

The twelve million tonnes year 1993/1994

The Selby Coalfield was designed and planned to produce 10 million tonnes per annum when in full production from the five pits. This figure meant that each pit had to maintain 40,000 every single week which was no mean feat. The first year this figure was exceeded was in 1992/1993 when the complex produced 10,806,000 tonnes of coal in the financial year ending March 1993. Wistow Mine produced 2,938,000, which included a European record of 173,156 tonnes in one week, Riccall Mine 2,600,000, Stillingfleet Mine 1,506,000, North Selby Mine 2,024,000 and Whitemoor Mine 1,801,000 tonnes of coal. These figures were an outstanding achievement with records for production and tunnelling broken on a regular basis. Twenty two longwall, two shortwall and 13 single entry faces were worked in this financial year.

As the coal production was ramping up, face development rates had to improve which was achieved by the introduction of rockbolting throughout the complex. Nearly 59,500m of tunnels were developed in the financial year 1992 /1993 to open up the coal faces needed to mine over 10,800,000 tonnes of coal production. All in all a good year for the Selby Coalfield.

In the year 1993/1994, the complex was set up for another record year and produced 12,091,000 tonnes of coal. In this year, Riccall Mine produced a European record of 3,060,000, achieving an average production of nearly 60,000 tonnes every week.

During the year, Riccall Mine worked three faces at the west of the mine. H474s, H475s and H476s were all 250m in length and retreated over 2000m. Three faces were worked at the south west of the mine. H430s, H432s and H433s were 230m in length and retreated over 1500m. Three faces at the east of the mine, H501s, H502s and H503s were all 250m in length and retreated 1800m. A total of five, face to face transfers of equipment were completed during this twelve month period. This was a very busy year of seven days a week and twelve hours shifts for the teams, including the electrical installation team of which I was a member.

Pete Wordsworth and Ian Lloyd with West Side face team.

The lads on the photo are Pete Wordsworth who was Top Nana( Face Deputy ), Ian Fisher, Ian Lloyd (Under Manager), Mark Light, Maurice Kent, Don Cook, Unit fitter, Richard Yarrow (Teapot), Simon Craven, Stuart who was a chock fitter (Mr Blobby) Terry Haywood, John Barnfather, Dennis Nicholl.

Above is the press release from Selby Area Director Alan Houghton confirming the European Record of 1,000,000 tonnes in 14 weeks and 3,000,000 tonnes in 51 weeks.

Wistow Mine produced 2,900,000 tonnes, Stillingfleet Mine produced 1,952,000 tonnes, Whitemoor Mine produced 2,221,100 tonnes and North Selby Mine produced 1,853,000 tonnes of coal. Twenty six longwall, two shortwall and ten single entry faces were worked and over 58,000 metres of tunnels were developed during this year.

This was the final year that British Coal managed the coal industry with RJB Mining taking over in Jan 1995.

Ron Bruce’s memories of the Royal Visit

The Royal Visit on 7th 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 adjacent to the main building at the mine. 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.

Thank you to Ron for his memories of the event. 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 are lost forever.

The East Coast Main Line and the Selby Coalfield.

When the Selby coalfield was planned one of the first major issues to be raised was the East Coast Main Line running over the planned workings of Riccall Mine and Stillingfleet Mine. The concern was that a mile wide section of coal would have to be left to maintain the integrity of the railway. This would have cost the N.C.B. a huge amount of time and money due to lost available reserves and having to plan a mine around the mile wide pillar of coal. Thirty coal faces would have been affected had the line not been moved. As with most mining projects a solution was found. The solution was to move the railway line to the west of the Selby Coalfield. This was called the Selby Diversion. Below is an amazing insight into this marvel of engineering within a marvel of engineering.

https://www.yorkmix.com/video-brings-york-to-london-rail-route-lost-40-years-ago-back-to-life

The new 13.79 mile Selby Diversion line was built between 1980 and 1983 to the very latest specifications. It was the very first stretch of 125mph railway line built in the country. In 1983 the old line was abandoned. A new section of the A19 road was built on the old railway from a new roundabout sited at the south of Barlby near to British Oil Cake Mills (BOCM) factory and pickle factory to the north of Riccall. This created a much needed bypass of the villages and was opened in October 1987. The abandoned railway at the north of Riccall became a part of the Trans Pennine Trail cycleway to York as part of the Sustrans scheme.

Royal visit to Riccall Mine

Video and memories of the day

The official opening of the Selby Coalfield took place on December 7th 1989. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip 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 Philip 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 and possibly recognise some of the people on the videos.

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.

Many thanks to my mate Ian Cawthorne who kindly provided me with the digitised version of the original VHS video of the visit.

Ian worked at Riccall Mine as an underground fitter and chargehand.

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.

Artwork of a miner by Karl Jarrett, showing a man working underground changing a shearer cable at Fryston Colliery.

Changing shearer cable on 33s. 1982.

Artwork of a group of miners by Karl Jarrett, them at snap time underground at Fryston Colliery.

Fryston Colliery snap time stopping the belts. 1982.

Artwork of miners by Karl Jarrett, showing them working at the face of a heading underground at Fryston Colliery.

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.

Artwork of miners being attacked by police at Fryston Colliery during the miners' strike of 1984.

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.

Artwork of miner by Karl Jarrett, showing man carrying a cruciform arch at Fryston Colliery.

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.

Artwork of miner by Karl Jarrett, showing man on road header machine at Whitemoor Mine.

Holing through to Riccall Mine. 1986.

Tank slit at Whitemoor Mine. 1986.

Whitemoor/ Riccall Mine Connection. 1987.

Artwork of three miners by Karl Jarrett, carrying a pump at Whitemoor Mine.

Dalek at Riccall Bunker. 1988.

Artwork of three miners by Karl Jarrett, dragging a beam girder at Whitemoor Mine.

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.

Artwork of miner by Karl Jarrett, salvaging props from the face at Whitemoor Mine.

Whitemoor Mine H624s face salvaging hydraulic props. 1992.

Artwork of miner by Karl Jarrett, working in the tailgate from hell at Whitemoor Mine.

Tailgate from Hell. Whitemoor Mine. 1995

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

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

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) due to the transfer of thousands of miner due to the mass closures in the late 1960.

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.