Stillingfleet Mine – Selby Superpit

Plan of coal faces at Stillingfleet Mine with seven worked in the North Selby Mine area.

The first coal faces at Stillingfleet Mine were worked from the east / west lateral roadways. The first face worked in Jan 1988 was H01Bs on the west side of the mine. H01Cs started production in May 1988 at the east side of the mine. The lateral heading to the east of the mine was the connection with the North Selby Mine lateral roadway called West 2 Conveyor Road and was completed in July 1989. The heading was developed using two Dosco Mk 3 roadheaders. The roadway was driven from both mines simultaneously and was over 3,600m long on completion.

HO1Cs face and Stillingfleet connection to North Selby West 2 Conveyor Road

The early face developments were driven using Dosco Mk2a Revised Hydraulics roadheader setting arch supports with Dosco Mk3 roadheaders driving the lateral roadways. As the mine progressed the face heading development Dosco roadheaders were replaced with BJD flat chain mat continuous miners (Heliminers). Roof bolting replaced the arch supports to achieve faster drivage rates.

BJD (Dresser) Heliminer

Lee Norse LN800 continuous miners gradually replaced the BJD Heliminers and were used from the early 1990s.

Lee Norse LN 800 2TT

Dosco Mk3 roadheaders which were being used to drive the lateral headings at Stillingfleet Mine were gradually replaced with the smaller, more compact Dosco LH 1300 roadheaders.

Dosco LH1300 Roadheader

The coal clearance system at Stillingfleet Mine was designed to have capacity for the coal from North Selby Mine by using a system of bunkers and staple shafts as described below.

A 7.5m diameter, 2000 tonne staple bunker was created in the North Intake near to the pit bottom area called the North Intake Staple Bunker as seen below on the plan.

Plan showing North Intake Staple Bunker at the bottom right of the plan

Stillingfleet No1 and No2 shafts and pit bottom area

As the South Intake progressed a further bunker was created called the Kelfield Bunker as shown below on the plan.

Kelfield Bunker in South Intake conveyor road

At the end of the South Intake the roadway turned to the south west, heading towards the Gascoigne Wood Bunker 6 staple shaft. A bunker and conveyor drive house was created in this south west lateral roadway near to the junction with the South Intake as seen on the plan below. A ventilation connection, already existed from Mar 1987 and this was kept in use with a .8m diameter 20° inclined borehole. A small section, one in one (45)° drift was also created at the end of the lateral to give access and supply air to Gascoigne Wood Mine.

Stillingfleet South Conveyor road and Gascoigne Wood south west lateral connection roadway to Bunker 6

The Gascoigne Wood coal clearance connection roadway to the south of the mine was completed in Dec 1987 to load coal into Gascoigne Wood Mine via a 2000 tonne, 7.5m diameter staple shaft called Bunker 6 as seen on plan below.

Plan of Bunker 6, Ventilation Borehole and 1 in 1 Drift connections to Gascoigne Wood Mine

The Bunker 6 Westerland feeder coal clearance connection from Stillingfleet Mine.

The conveyors in the east and south intake lateral roadways at Stillingfleet Mine had to transport coal from North Selby and Stillingfleet Mines. The drive house roadways were 5m high by 7m wide, square section stanchion girders and were created to house the double, 6.6 K.V. 750kw, steel cord conveyor drives. The drive house was situated in the South Intake roadway near to the pit bottom with the steel cord conveyor running to the south of the mine towards the Gascoigne Wood Mine connection.

Stillingfleet Mine developed the east and west lateral headings to the furthest extent and worked faces from 1988. The west side of the mine worked 12 faces, the last being H219s in 1998 and the east of the mine worked 6 faces, the last being H256s in 1995 very near to the North Selby Mine workings. During this period the north lateral headings were developed and a further north east lateral was driven where 2 faces were worked. As the mine progressed northwards a west and east lateral was developed with 9 faces worked from 1995 to 2002.

An east lateral heading developed was developed at the south side of the mine. Production started in this area in 1995 with H300s face. Eight faces were worked in what was known as the Escrick Brickworks area and finished with H307s in 2004. When this area of the mine was developed a 1000 tonne horizontal bunker was created as storage for surges in production in the east lateral which loaded onto the South Intake steel cord conveyor.

When North Selby and Stillingfleet Mine merged in 1997, reserves became available to be worked from Stillingfleet Mine in the North Selby area. Seven faces were worked in this area, the final face being H853s which finished production in August 2004, one week after H272s.

From production starting in Jan 1988 until closure in August 2004, Stillingfleet Mine worked 49 longwall coal faces, 7 of which were in the original planned area of North Selby Mine. The faces were worked using Anderson Strathclyde AM500, 375 KW D.E.R.D.S shearers with face equipment supplied by Gullick Dobson and Dowty Meco. As the mine progressed, Joy 4LS shearers with Joy face equipment replaced the original equipment on the faces.

Mine plans attribution

I have been in contact with Martin Thomson who moved from Ledston Luck Colliery to Stillingfleet Mine. He kindly gave me his memories of working at Stillingfleet from 1986. It is always great to hear people’s memories.

Martin remembers the following, but is happy to be corrected –

The mine was split into east and west sides from first development – I started there in 1986 transferred from Ledston Luck as ‘elsewhere below ground’ worker – at that time the main laterals were still being driven and the ‘run of mine’ was sent by conveyor to horizontal bunker in the pit bottom where it was loaded into ~2t mine cars and lifted up the downcast shaft – at the pit top the coal was taken by wagon for sale and the waste used to build the screening etc – B1 was the first longwall on west side – 200m long 2.6m thick Barnsley seam – gates were in region of 1500m – all chocks on the face run were controlled by 3 man team with two machine men DERDS – gate ends had a separate 2 men teams and then a stage loader man – additional team members were 2 mechanical and 1 electrical and deputy – this first face was a production record breaker – the output per manshift was enormous (can’t remember the numbers I’m afraid) and the management team were excited to think all the faces would be equally productive – C1 was the second face this time on the east side -the equipment /mechanics were the same as B1 but the geology was different and although successful, never really matched the production rates of B1, and this continued on east side for second third and fourth faces with some very difficulty faulting creating lots of cavities to contend with (unfortunately for me, these were the faces I did my face training and face work on) – many ‘happy’ hours were spent drilling great lumps of immovable sandstone that dropped onto the armoured face conveyor, ready for the shotfirer and his explosives! and then even more hours putting up shuttering with timber and plastic sheets in order to pump the void above the chocks with a cementitious material which when set, could later be sheared through thus creating a new stable roof – the laterals were laid with rails which incorporated ‘rack-a-track’ to enable the diesel locomotives to drive their pinion ‘cog’ along, thus enabling them to transport loads up/down a general inclination east to west – the laterals followed the Barnsley seam which dipped eastward (can’t remember the gradient ~1in8? with faulting in some parts making it steeper) – I spent a few months on diesel loco transport and can remember they really struggled with frequent overheating problems – later, the mine used all electric battery powered Bobo locomotives with rubber tyre wheels which were successful, reliable, very capable (including the transport of powered supports) cleaner and quieter – later still, the mine used diesel powered FSV which were flexible, powerful but noisy and dirty and were limited to drivage gates – the floor heave outbye created lots of problems with constant need for dinting – later still, the mine used manriding conveyors to try to speed up journey times for face teams – the mine developed northward and was successful with a number of shorter length face/gates – the south side did not have face units (at least not while I was there up to ~1996) as it was a lateral that the main conveyor was installed within connecting to the 2000t capacity vertical staple bunker down to a lower lateral which then used a vertical borehole down to Gascoigne Wood drift mine tunnels and the Anderson Strathclyde steel cord belt (south tunnel?) and the cable belt (north tunnel?)

Many thanks to Martin for giving me the above information.

Category: Stillingfleet Mine

List of Coal Faces at Stillingfleet Mine

Memories of Stillingfleet Mine.