Category: Surface Development

Gascoigne Wood Washery Plant.

During the early stages of development and planning of the Selby Coalfield, a huge project was undertaken to prove the available seams were workable. Nearly 90 boreholes and 345 in seam seismic surveys were carried out to prove the available coal. The planning permission was based on the findings which proved 2 billion tonnes of available reserves of which 600 million tonnes were the Barnsley Seam. The comment made at this stage of planning was the Barnsley Seam is clean coal, good enough to send straight to the power station and that the 600 million tonnes were relatively dirt free reserves.

Gascoigne Wood mine was designed to have no coal preparation facilities or tipping space but due to underground faulting, dinting, sinking of cross measure drift and face conditions across the complex the amount of dirt in the coal was becoming a problem. The decision was made in the early 1990s to build a huge screening and coal preparation plant on site. The existing covered coal storage facility was chosen to house all the equipment needed to build the new preparation plant.

The coal storage was redirected to an adjacent open area that could store up to 400,000 tonnes of coal; which is over two months’ production. The new stocking ground had coal stackers with boom conveyors capable of raising, lowering and rotating to ensure the coal was stacked efficiently. Each stacker could process around 3,500 tonnes of coal per hour with the whole system mounted on a transportable carriage rather like an overhead crane. The coal was reclaimed from the storage area, to be processed, using a rotating barrel incorporating a reclaiming bucket. This system operated at 1500 tonnes per hour and sent the coal to the preparation plant inside the old storage area.

The Original Covered Coal Storage Area

The Boom Stacker and Reclaimer System

Gascoigne Wood site showing coal preparation facilities.

The coal preparation plant contained inside the old storage consisted of 4 screens manufactured by Don Valley Engineering. These were known by their nickname ‘banana screens’ due to their curved design. Two screens were used in each route from the drifts and were capable of processing 900 tonnes per hour at a size of 1 inch. The coal was then blended with smaller coal from the 16x flip flow IFE screens. The coal washing system was 6x Parnaby barrel type natural medium with a capacity of 1200 tonnes per hour. The smaller coal was washed using cyclones to deal with the slurry filtration.

Click on the link to show the plant in October 2004 during the last days when the only production in the complex was from SM 504s at Riccall Mine. It gives you an idea how vast and complex the coal preparation plant was.

Due to the site not having planning permission to tip waste and a ban on road haulage transportation, the dirt from the preparation plant was sent to Allerton Bywater Colliery for tipping via railway. Liquid slurry was sent to Wheldale Colliery via an overland pipeline for disposal in the shafts. Coarse waste was sent via railway to Welbeck Site, near Normanton to be used for landfill and reclamation.

When the closure of Allerton Bywater Colliery was announced in March 1992 the need for tipping space at Gascoigne Wood site became a major priority. Planning permission was applied for in July 1993. A full review was carried out on the 133.8 hectare farm land site. At the time, 98% of the land was used for agricultural production with grade 3b moderate soil types covering 79% of the site. Planning was granted in late 1993 to start a 340 acre tip to the East of the mine site. The tip was started in 1994 with precise planning and environmental conditions imposed. As the tip progressed in a modular manner, called cells, continuous restoration took place. 110,000 trees were planted in an 10 metre wide border around the site in the first year with a further 50,000 to be planted as the restoration of the site progressed. Topsoil was added to the site on completed sections within 18 months of completion of each phase.

Gascoigne Wood tip looking south.

Gascoigne Wood tip looking south east.

Gascoigne Wood tip looking north west.

The original planning permission was for an area of 340 acres. Further planning permission was added as the tip was completed with a further extension added to the north and east of the existing one. In 1999 a further planning permission was granted to allow the tipping of waste from the Stanley Main Drifts being developed at Riccall Mine.  

Due to the very high standard of restoration work carried out on the site, Gascoigne Wood Mine was awarded the accolade of ISO 14001, the first mine in Europe to be awarded the International Environmental Standard.

The tip is not recognisable as a Colliery tip now, with vast areas of grass and trees. If you enter ‘Gascoigne Wood’ into Google Earth you can see the extent and standard of the remediation work carried out.

Bibliography

DOWNES, E. (2016). YORKSHIRE COLLIERIES 1947-1994.

Photographs kindly provided by N. Rowley.

Gascoigne Wood Surface.

 The Drift Portals.

 Gascoigne Wood surface site 1996

The Gascoigne Wood Drift Mine, surface coal preparation and delivery plant were by far the largest site in the entire Selby Complex. The surface site alone, when planned, covered 164 acres but eventually covered a 276 acre site. Once the coal had surfaced, via the huge drift conveyors, from the mines positioned around the coalfield it was delivered by overhead conveyors to a covered coal and stocking area capable of holding 43,000 tonnes of coal, a full day of production. This was the largest stocking area in Europe. Once the coal was delivered to this facility it was was deposited by 28m long stackers into stock piles ready for preparation. The next stage was moving the coal to the coal bunkers using 2x 40 m span Barrell Reclaimers which moved up to 2000 tonnes of coal per hour into the coal handler bunkers alongside and over the coal dispatch point at the railway line. The coal was loaded automatically at a 1000 tonnes in 11 minutes by rapid loaders into trains. The coal was loaded into the 36 high capacity wagons moving at up to 1.5 miles per hour through the loading points and then dispatched to Drax power station on the purpose built rail line. It was designed, at peak, to deliver a 36 wagon train every half hour, day and night, 5 days every week. Throughout the coal production cycle sampling took place to ensure the coal was the correct specification at the power station. Throughout the design and building stages the huge impact of the site on the surrounding environment was minimised by clever landscaping and using colours and shaping to blend in with surrounding landscapes.

The site was chosen for many reasons, a major factor, geographically was the access to the main railway network. Gascoigne Wood was previously a marshalling yard with fifty acres of disused sidings sited six miles from Selby and just north of the previous Gascoigne Wood station and had been used for coal train marshalling up to 1959.

Capture Gascoigne Wood siding pre mine

The site of the Gascoigne Wood marshalling yard.

It had three power stations on it’s southern horizon, Eggborough, Drax and Ferrybridge. Drax, the biggest coal fired power station in Europe, was going to be the main customer with a direct rail link to be established. This rail link was established as the Selby mines were being developed and involved resiting of the existing East Coast Main line further West with a Selby Diversion to ensure mining subsidence did not effect the new line. The parliamentary act allowing the Selby diversion and new line to be constructed was passed in 1979. Construction was started in 1980 and opened in 1983 having been built to the very latest high speed specification to allow Intercity 125 trains to run with a final bill of £63 million charged to the NCB. This construction cost was offset by the NCB as the coal could be mined under the existing East Coast Main line as opposed to the mile wide pillar of coal to be left to maintain surface integrity, estimated at £500 to £800 million of coal production. Once the new 23 km East Coast Main Line with the Selby Diversion was completed the old rail link was abandoned.

Having looked at the Selby Coalfield mine plans, an estimate of around thirty coal faces would have been affected by the mile wide pillar of coal which would have had to be left un-mined had the Selby Diversion not been built. Riccall and Stillingfleet Mines would have been seriously affected as the old railway route passed over or very near to faces worked at both of the mines.

For photographs of the Gascoigne Wood Drift Mine surface site post mine closure click on the link below.

Abandoned Britain, Gascoigne Wood