Selby Superpit

Gascoigne Wood Spine Tunnels

The first contract for the drift drivages was placed with Cementation Mining on the 15th July 1977 with site work commencing on the 1st of August 1977. The 1 in 4 Drifts were completed using the modified SB 600 Roadheaders setting circular, waterproof, sealed, round section supports. The waterproof seals were installed at 832m and the drift continued for a short distance until the spine tunnel drivages started. Cementation Mining replaced the drift roadheaders with two, heavy duty Dosco Mk 3 Roadheaders. The South Tunnel continued at 1 in 33 incline to the East on to 1670m from the drift portal, setting 17 x 12 feet arches. At this point an erection chamber was created, 35m long, 8.6m high and 6.8m wide. This erection chamber was created to build the Robbins 193-214 Tunnel Boring Machine designed to drive the South Spine Tunnel. The machine construction was started in July 1981 and completed in October 1981. During the construction of the Robbins TBM, the North Spine Tunnel continued at an average rate of 65m to 70m per week using the Dosco Mk 3 roadheader, reaching 2891m when the contract with Cementation Mining was completed in August 1981.

Dosco MK3 Roadheader

The main reason the North Spine Tunnel continued was the urgency of the connection to Wistow Mine for the initial coal clearance. At the completion of the contract with Cementation Mining a new contract was started with Thyssens who took on the drivages, the South Spine using the Robbins 193-214 TBM. Thyssens replaced the Dosco Mk3 Roadheader with a Meco Titan E134 C Roadheader and the North Spine Tunnel continued.

Meco Titan(Paurat) E134 C Roadheader.

When the tunnels reached 3843m the gradient was changed to 1 in 40 North Easterly. When the contract with Thyssens was completed Amalgamated Construction (AMCO) took the next contract and completed the spine tunnels.

Having talked to a mate who worked at Gascoigne Wood for many years I have a list of the ventilation slits, substations and coal clearance bunkers travelling inbye from the Drift bottom. The connecting roadways between the North and South Spine Tunnels were called V Slits up to number 11 then they were called Bunker Slits.

926m- Pumping Station.

V1 – Locomotive Garage and main 6.6kv 185mm Ring main substation.

V2- Ventilation Slit and Substation.

V3- Ventilation Slit and Wistow Mine Staple Bunker

V4- Originally a Wistow Mine single staple bunker but later a North and South Staple with an East and West Westerland feeder conveyor.

V5- Ventilation Slit and a main 6.6kv 185mm Ring main substation.

V6- Offset slit for battery charging station.

7208m- South Spine ventilation shaft to Wistow Mine. (later disused)

V7- Staple shaft to Wistow Mine. (later disused)

V8- North and South staple bunker with access ladders to Wistow Mine.

7916m- Second ventilation shaft to Wistow Mine. 7208m borehole was disused when this was completed.

V10- Ventilation Slit and Locomotive passbye.

V11- Ventilation Slit.

Bunker 5-Ventilation Slit. Temporary bunker to Stillingfleet Mine and main 6.6kv 185mm Ring main substation.

Bunker 6-Stillingfleet and North Selby Mines staple shaft.

The Stillingfleet Bunker in the South Spine with a Westerland weigh feeder loader.

Between Bunker 6 and Bunker 7 was a 200m slit towards Stillingfleet Mine with a coal clearance borehole used until the complex closed.

Bunker 7-Riccall and Whitemoor Mines staple shaft.

Between Bunker 7 and Bunker 8 was the final inbye 6.6kv 185mm Ring main substation.

Bunker 8- Riccall and Whitemoor Mines staple shaft via Westerland variable speed feeder.

At the bottom of Bunker 7 and Bunker 8 Staple shafts the coal was delivered onto a Westerland weigh feeder conveyor onto a conveyor. This conveyor could direct the coal onto either of the north spine cable belt or the south spine ASL conveyors.

At the furthest point of the spine tunnels was the Riccall Mine connection via a 1 in 7 drift. The Gascoigne Wood / Riccall Mine connection had a dedicated 6.6kv supply to the booster fan supplied from Riccall Mine to ventilate Gascoigne Wood. I was on the team installing these fans and switchgear in a very hot area of the mine.

This area of the mine also had a connection via an angled access borehole from Riccall Mine to Gascoigne Wood. This 62m shaft, with ladders, was used for access before the 1 in 7 drift was driven.

The 62m inclined access shaft to Riccall Mine

Inbye of the 1 in 7 Drift, Riccall Mine Connection was the stub heading where the Robbins TBM was driven forward and abandoned

Gascoigne Wood Spine Tunnels at Riccall Connection 1 in 7 Drift .

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.

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

Overview of the Selby Superpit.

The Selby Coalfield Complex was a brand new mine sunk with the intention of mining 600 million tonnes of the Barnsley Bed coal seam only. It was conceived using a relatively new concept and design used in British mining. The entire coal production was to surface at a separate mine sited many kilometres away from the production coal faces. The concept was very similar to a complex of coal mines in the Fife Coalfield of Scotland called The Longannet Complex.

Map reproduced with kind permission of N.M.R.S. https://www.nmrs.org.uk/

The original plan for the Selby Coalfield was the five satellite mines were to have a direct connection to the Gascoigne Wood spine tunnels via staple shafts. The plan was to complete the spine tunnels at 14,500m near to North Selby Mine. The plans were amended and the complex progressed as described below.

3D Diagram of the Selby Coalfield.

The coal produced in the Selby Complex was delivered to the surface via two huge conveyor belts,12.2 kilometres in length in the two spine tunnels running 60m to 80m below the Barnsley Bed coal seam in the Lidgett coal seam horizon. This difference in depths between the production coal seam and the spine tunnel depth was designed to give North Selby and Stillingfleet, two staple shafts, each with 2000 tonnes of storage, Riccall and Whitemoor, two staple shafts, each with 2000 tonnes of storage and Wistow, three staple shafts each with 2000 tonnes of storage. The shafts were all 24 feet in diameter with loading rates all remotely operated and controlled from Gascoigne Wood Mine. This was designed to ensure full production could continue, if either of the spine tunnel conveyors stopped. Each staple shaft could load onto either of the spine conveyors via uni directional feeders called Westerland Feeders sited at the bottom of each staple shaft. The two spine tunnels were part of the Gascoigne Wood Drift Mine, where all the coal production was delivered to the surface via two, 1 in 4 incline, 800m long, sloping tunnels. The North Spine Tunnel was designed to deliver 2000 tonnes per hour and the South Spine Tunnel was designed to deliver 2200 tonnes per hour. The coal was processed and stored in the largest coal storage facility in Europe with a capacity of 43,000 tonnes, which is one day of production. It was then dispatched to Drax power station via a new rail link created for the Selby Coalfield by British Rail and paid for by the N.C.B.

Gascoigne Wood Drifts.

Gascoigne Wood coal train rapid loader

Gascoigne Wood coal storage and reclaimer facility.

The Barnsley Bed coal seam has a natural dip of 1 in 17 from West to North East so the shafts’ depths became deeper as the complex developed. Wistow Mine was the first mine to be sunk, starting in October 1976 and reached the Barnsley Bed Seam at 365m in March 1980 with a final shaft depth of 411.3m (No1) and 381.5m (No2). Gascoigne Wood Drift Mine was the second mine to be started in March 1978. The two, 800m drifts were sunk using modified Dosco S.B.600 with a shield to enable a circular lining to be installed due to huge ingress of water.

Plan of Gascoigne Wood Drift construction design.

This development continued until 22nd June 1987 in the South Spine Tunnel and 24th November 1991 in the North Spine Tunnel. The first connection to a production mine was made in 1982 at Wistow Mine where production started in January 1983.

The two Gascoigne Wood spine tunnels were driven by two totally different machines. The South Spine Tunnel was a 204 tonne, 900 H.P. Robbins 193-214 Tunnel Boring Machine ( TBM), only the second time a TBM had been used in a British mine, the first being a Thyssen FLP 35 at Dawdon Colliery in 1975/76.

900 H.P. Robbins 193-214 Tunnel Boring Machine ( TBM)

The tunnelling machine used in the North Spine Tunnel was initially a Dosco MK 3 roadheader until it was replaced with a 260 horsepower, heavy duty, Thyssen Meco Titan (Paurat) 132C

Dosco MK3 Roadheader.

Thyssen Meco (Paurat) Titan 132C.

The Selby Complex was designed in 1974 as the most modern mine in the world. The mining engineers intended to use the most modern mining techniques available. This was reflected in the development drivages at the individual mines, where many records were achieved using Dosco MK2A (revised hydraulics), MK2B, MK3 and Anderson Strathclyde RH series roadheading machines driving the main roadways. The roadways to access the coal faces were driven using BJD Heliminer, Lee Norse LN800 and JOY CM12 continuous miner machines. Clayton Pony and BoBo battery and Hunslet-G.M.T. diesel locomotives were used for the underground haulage with diesel Free Steered Vehicles used for delivering equipment in some of the gate roads developments. Whitemoor and Gascoigne Wood were the only mines to operate a wire rope haulage for manriding and equipment haulage.

The first coal face equipment used at Selby were either Gullick Dobson or Dowty Meco face supports with Anderson Strathclyde AM500 DERDS or BJD ACE DERDS shearers.

Shearer on coalface.

Three Dimensional Plan of the Selby Coalfield.

As you can see from the plan, the Selby Coalfield was a huge mining engineering project, which was the biggest and most complex ever undertaken in the world at the time.

The Doncaster Connection.

The Doncaster area was a coalfield seen as a huge financial risk for individual mining companies to undertake. One colliery, Hickleton Main, which had been sunk only a few miles to the west of the new coalfield was sunk in 1892 at a cost of £150,000, nearly £24m nowadays. The new, deeper coalmines, needed multiple investors to work together financially to spread the cost and risk before the next phase of development started at Bentley Colliery in March 1905 followed quickly by Brodsworth Main Colliery in October 1905, which was projected to cost £300,000, £46.5m at current rates. The new coalfield had been proven with test borings at various points around Doncaster, including one at Bentley in 1893 which proved the Barnsley seam was 2.75m thick and 562 metres in depth. In 1893, at Haxey, North Lincolnshire, a borehole just beyond the eastern boundary of the coalfield proved many workable seams with the Barnsley seam almost flat in incline.

The Doncaster Coalfield.

Map reproduced with kind permission of N.M.R.S. https://www.nmrs.org.uk/

The colleries sunk in this period were;

Bentley Colliery: Sinking started in March 1905 and was abandoned due to problems with water and flowing sand. It was restarted on 3rd March 1906. The shafts were completed in October 1908. The Barnsley seam was found at 570 metres with sumps created at 598 metres to prove the Dunsil seam. The Barnsley seam was 2.88m thick.

Brodsworth Main Colliery: Sinking started on 23rd October 1905 and was completed in October 1907. The Barnsley seam was found at 541 metres and sumps were created at 544 metres. The shafts were 6.5 metres in diameter and the Barnsley seam was up to 2.9m thick.

Maltby Main Colliery: Sinking started on the 3rd September 1907 and was completed in June 1910. The Barnsley seam was found at 750 metres and the sumps were created at 785 metres. The Barnsley seam was 2.55m thick

Bullcroft Main Colliery: Sinking started in June 1908 and was completed in December 1911. Shaft freezing was used during the sinking process . The Barnsley seam was found at 602 metres and sumps were created at 630 metres with the pit bottom created in the Dunsil seam at 626 metres. The Barnsley seam was 2.72m thick

Thorne Colliery: Sinking started in October 1909 and was completed in March 1926, the longest, most difficult and complex shaft sinking in mining history. During the sinking process, tubbing, cementation, shaft freezing and concrete grouting were all used to create the shafts. the final cost was £1.5 million which would have cost £117 million nowadays. The Barnsley seam was found in No1 shaft at 845 metre and sumps were created at 881 metres. The Barnsley seam was 2.7metres thick.

Yorkshire Main Colliery ( originally called Edlington Main Colliery): Sinking started on 10th December 1909 and was completed in August 1911. The Barnsley seam was found at 829 metres and sumps were created at 833 metres. The Barnsley seam was up to 3.23 metres thick.

Askern Main Colliery: Sinking started on 22nd February 1911 and was completed in 1914 due to deeper sinkings to the Parkgate seam. The Warren House ( Barnsley Rider) was found at 515 metres. The sumps were created at 744 metre, 10 metres below the Parkgate seam.

Hatfield Main Colliery: Sinking started in November 1911 and was completed in April 1917. The Barnsley seam was found at 786 metres in the No 1 shaft and sumps were created at 806 metres. The Barnsley seam was 2.8 metres thick.

Rossington Main Colliery: Sinking started on 9th June 1912 and was completed in December 1915. The Barnsley seam was found at 797 metres. The shafts were sunk deeper to prove the Dunsil seam which was 1.75 metres thick and had sumps created at 816 metres. The Barnsley seam was 2.31m thick.

Markham Main Colliery ( originally Armthorpe Main Colliery): Sinking started on 6th May 1916 and was completed in June 1926. The shafts took 10 years to sink due to economic conditions in the industry. The Barnsley seam was found at 668 metres and had sumps created at 683 metres. The Barnsley seam was 1.83 metres thick.

All of the Doncaster area collieries had difficulty with huge amounts water during sinking. Various new mining engineering techniques were used to overcome these major issues, at great cost, as mentioned above including shaft freezing which proved to be the technique used throughout the Selby Coalfield.

During the period of the early exploration and boring programme in the Doncaster area in the early 1900s, the major landowner in the Selby area, The Earl of Londesborough, had deep boreholes drilled in 1904 at Barlow, to the South East of Selby. The expected coal deposits were not found. The Earl had two further boreholes drilled, one near to Selby in 1909 and one further East near to Wressle in 1913. Neither of the test borings gave the Earl the expected results of the Barnsley Bed coal seam in his land and what coal was found was of thin and poor quality seams.The Earl gave up his exploration and The Selby Coalfield was left undisturbed for another fifty years.

The Yorkshire Coalfield in 1923.

‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland’ CC-BY (NLS)

The above map shows the Yorkshire Coalfield as published in 1923. The map shows the specific position of the collieries, company name and the size of the royalties (colliery take). The areas where stripes are shown show the leasing of a seam to adjacent collieries. As you can see the areas of coal leased became huge towards the east in the Doncaster area, due to the massive investment involved in sinking a mine in the the concealed coalfield. If you look towards the right of the map 4 sections are shown, Lindholme, Finningley, Belton and South Car. New mines were planned in these areas but the decline in the industry in the 1920s stopped these developments.

‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland’ CC-BY (NLS)

A very interesting point on the map shows that the Selby Coalfield was not even mentioned.

Selby Coalfield showing northern edge of Doncaster Coalfield and Kellingley Colliery.

Map reproduced with kind permission of N.M.R.S. https://www.nmrs.org.uk/

The bottom of the map shows the Northern extent of the Doncaster Coalfield. This map shows the relative proximity of the two coalfields.

Coal Measures.

The lower coal measures.

The geology of the Yorkshire Coalfield is a story of working coal from the western edge of the coalfield in the Pennine lower coal measure starting at Walkley in Sheffield moving northwards to Bradfield, Bolsterstones, Stocksbridge, Crow Edge, East of Holmfirth, West of Huddersfield, to the north Western part of Halifax.

These coal seams were worked from the surface where they outcropped, and in shallow drift mines, and were situated in the foothills of the Pennines along this line.

The seams worked were the Pot Clay Coal seam, the Halifax Soft Bed or Coking Coal seam, the Halifax Hard Bed, The Black Bed, The Crow Coal and the Whinmoor Seam.

The Pot Clay Coal Seam was used for pipe manufacturing. The Halifax Soft bed was a very low sulphur coking coal mined in the Sheffield to Stocksbridge area using shallow drift mines. It was used for steel production and was mined as far north as the Halifax area on the outcrop.The Halifax Hard Bed was a coal seam used for local manufacturing and steam raising in mills and industrial installations. This seam had layers of fireclay and ganister, used for fire bricks and was worked from Sheffield, although not in great quantities, all the way to the north of Halifax. It was also known as the Ganister Seam. The Black Bed was a 24 to 30 inch seam used as house coal mined towards the north of the coalfield. The Crow Coal was a seam consisting of 20 inch of top quality house coal with a muck band of up to 12 inch and a further 7 inch of inferior coal at the base of the seam. It was mined mainly in the Leeds area. The coal from the Whinmoor Seam was a poor quality home coal and industrial coal.

I worked in the Whinmoor seam at Hayroyds Colliery, Clayton West, between 1998 and 2002. The seam varied between 4 feet 8 inch feet thick towards the north at Clayton West to 4 feet 2 inch going south towards Cawthorne, making underground conditions quite challenging. The seam had a muck band which thinned toward Cawthorne and was very wet. The coal was sold as power station fuel with the larger coal being sold as home coal from the pit as landsale.

The middle coal measures.

The middle coal measures are the group of coal seams which make up the majority of the coal mined in the Yorkshire coalfield. The middle measures make up a group of twenty five coal seams mined from east of Sheffield at Attercliffe moving north to Wincobank, Kimberworth, Greasbrough then north west to Thorpe Hesley, Pilley, Dodworth following a line north through Haigh, Netherton, Horbury, Ossett, Batley towards Morley then moving north eastwards towards Garforth via South Leeds. These seams provided the coal for the great Victorian Era and peaked in 1900 at 28,247,247 million tonnes and 100,826 miners before the final move eastwards in 1905 into the Doncaster coalfield. These pits were even deeper mines beneath the Permian layer, known as the Concealed Coalfield.

The seams worked in these measures starting from the surface are;

Shafton Seam: Pretty much worked around all the South Yorkshire area. A great steam raising coal and used during the railway era.

Swinton Seam: Poor quality coal.

Sharlston / Cudworth: Power station fuel.

Newhill / Castleford four foot Seam or Crown Coal: House and Power station fuel.

Meltonfield / Wathwood Seam: House coal.

Winter / Abdy Seam: House coal.

Beamshaw / Stanley Main Seam: One of the best house coals around.

Kent Thin Seam: House coal.

High Hazel Seam: Good house coal and Power station fuel.

Kent Thick / Mapplewell Seam: House coal, Power station fuel and sometimes a coking coal.

Warren House / Barnsley Rider Seam: Poor quality Power station fuel.

Barnsley Seam: The most important seam in the Yorkshire coalfield. It is world famous for the it’s thickness and quality and produced 50% of all the output in the area. It was up to 11 feet in thickness and was the main reason for sinking the pits in the Doncaster area and The Selby Coalfield. It has multiple beds with different uses. Used later as a perfect power station fuel.

Dunsil Seam: A dirty seam often used for blending with better quality coal for power station fuel. The seam sometimes combines with the Barnsley Seam, to the east of the area to create 14 feet of coal. South Kirkby Colliery, Markham Main and Rossington Colliery worked the combined seams.

Swallow Wood / Top Haighmoor and Low Haighmooor Seams: House coal, gas coal and second class steam coal. Top Haighmoor was often used for coke production.

Lidgett Seam: Good quality house coal.

Joan Seam: Poor quality general use coal.

Flockton Seams: House coal and Coking coal.

Fenton Seam: A gas and coking coal seam. Sometimes splits into two seams, High and Low Fenton also known as the First and Second Brown Metal seams.

Middleton Little Seams: The West Yorkshire version of the Parkgate and Fenton Seam. They are also known as the Brown Metal group of three seams.

Parkgate Seam: A very good quality coking, gas and industrial coal. It was heavily mined in South Yorkshire and only second to the Barnsley Seam. It was known as the Old Hards Seam in the North of the area.

Thorncliffe / Middleton Main Seam: A good quality coking, gas and industrial coal. It was known as the New Hards or Swilley Seam in the north of the area.

Silkstone Fourfoot / Wheatley Lime Seam: General purpose coal.

Middleton Eleven Yards Seam: General purpose coal.

Silkstone / Blocking Seam: High quality coking, gas and house coal.

Beeston Seam: Two beds of coal make the Beeston and can be up to 9 feet in thickness in central and East of Leeds. It was used as power station fuel. This is the final seam in the middle coal measures.

Coal seams in Yorkshire

Having worked in coal mines in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and the Selby Coalfield and my own research, it is obvious that coal seams are all different. ‘Dry’, ‘dusty’, ‘wet’, ‘gassy’ and ‘fiery’ are some of the descriptions you may use for the seam you are working in at the time. Gassy and fiery often mean the problem of spontaneous combustion is a major problem associated with these seams. As you can see below, Yorkshire has it’s fair share of these seams.

Shafton
Stanley Main
High Hazels
Barnsley Bed
Dunsil
Parkgate
Thorncliffe
Silkstone
Beeston

The South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire coalfields and seams are very different. Coal seams vary not only by thickness and quality but even in name. Below is a section of all the coal seams in Yorkshire, starting with the Shafton seam nearest the surface.

Yorkshire Coal Seams

The Yorkshire Coalfield is made up of two quite distinct areas. The world famous, Barnsley Bed Seam, also known as the Main Seam in South Yorkshire, was the prime seam in the South Yorkshire area. Collieries sunk to work the Barnsley seam were called Main, e.g. Cadeby Main, Wath Main, etc. The Barnsley seam changes character and splits to the north of the coalfield. It becomes the Warren House with a poor seam called the Barnsley Rider above the Warren House.

The Barnsley seam was discovered in the Selby area very much later in the 1960s, which started the Selby Coalfield development in the 1970s

The coalfield is split in an East / West line running from Woolley, in the West, to Askern in the East. This line was the dividing line of of two distinct coal swamps formed around 320 / 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous era.

The northern edge of the Yorkshire coalfield is situated North of Leeds and also has an East / West fault line. With the movement eastwards, victorian mining engineers encountered problems with the increasing depth of pits. in addition, a major geological problem was to cause more mining problems, vast expense and huge financial risk. This problem was the Magnesian limestone or as it is also known, The Permian Layer. This layer of rock is from the later Triassic and Jurasic geological era, from 130 million years ago.

This unbroken layer of Permian Limestone starts on the western outskirts of Nottingham and continues northwards up to Durham. The first pit to be sunk to work beneath this layer of limestone, which was also the deepest at the time was Denaby Main Colliery, mid way from Mexborough and Conisborough. The pit was sunk in 1867 to 457 yards to work the 108 inch Barnsley bed seam by the Pope and Pearson company, who sank the West Riding Colliery in Altofts, near Castleford. This layer of limestone, along with it’s water, was one of the major problems to be overcome during the development of the pits in the Doncaster area and when the Selby Coalfield was planned.

Romans to Railways

‘The story of the North Yorkshire coalfield is of a steady march eastwards’ (Michael Pollard in Ezra, 1976).

Mining started at the Western edge of the coalfield in the foothills of the Pennines. The Romans, who weren’t really big into mining, took the easily accessible coal from shallow drift mines or surface mining due to the ease of working the coal.

In the 16th century John Leland carried out a geological survey for the then king, Henry VIII. He found, as he moved North, that working the coal was still based on easy access. He also heard on his travels north towards Durham, that coal may even be under Durham Minster, as the Selby coalfield was under Selby Abbey.

Selby Abbey

You can see why there was a ban on mining anywhere near this beautiful Norman abbey.

During the Industrial Revolution, which came off the back of coal, mining became very important around the West Yorkshire industrial areas of Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds, and was established very quickly. The seams in this area are in the exposed coalfield and run from Halifax in the west, eastwards. Many seams were mined, usually the shallower seams, to create money to mine the deeper seams. Technology, particularly the ability to pump water from workings, resulted in a massive increase in investment from wealthy industrialists, usually on wealthy landed gentry land. The movement eastwards resulted in huge, deeper, new sinkings around the Castleford and Pontefract areas. These collieries provided some of the men, at a later date, to work in the new Selby Coalfield.

As the Industrial revolution progressed from the 1830s onwards, the mining of coal became more and more important to the country. We, as a nation, were sat on a huge reserve and the industrialist saw huge potential beneath their feet ready for the taking.

In 1825 the Railway era began with the first coalfield railway from Darlington to the town of Stockton where the coal was transported onwards, by boat. This transport revolution continued when the Liverpool to Manchester Railway was opened in 1830. This acceleration of technology and investment was a major help towards the opening of vast areas of the Yorkshire Coalfield from Barnsley in the South to Leeds in the North. Railways progressed at massive pace from 1830 to 1845 where 2,200 miles were laid. This increased 3 fold to 6,600 miles in 1852 around the time the North Yorkshire Coalfield major sinkings started. Many coal mines around the towns of Featherstone, Castleford, Pontefract and towards Leeds were sunk between 1854 and the 1880s, including Whitwood, Allerton Bywater, Allerton Main, Wheldale, Glasshoughton, Prince of Wales, Savile, Snydale, West Riding, Fryston and Ackton Hall to name but a few. The deepest pits in the area were Wheldale, at 546 yards, Fryston, at 568 yards, and the deepest being the Prince of Wales at 733 yards, all working as deep as the Beeston seam.

Click here for map of collieries in the Castleford and Pontefract area working around the 1880s.

Bibliography

Ezra, D. (1976). Coal. London: Macmillan.

Welcome

My name is Chris and I have worked in mining all my life from the age of sixteen. I grew up in a village surrounded by pits in the 60s, with family members who all worked in the local coal mines, New Monckton Colliery and Royston Drift Mine.
I am the sixth generation of miners in my family going back to mining in the Black Country and Catcliffe so I suppose you could say mining is in my blood. I was always interested in mining history and my mining heritage from early in my career. Around the same time I had the urge to research my family history as I was told miners were in my family as long as anyone could remember.

I am obviously the last generation of coal miners due to the sad closure and demise of the industry so this gave me the idea of researching the Selby Complex, the last big mining project undertaken in this country. I worked at Riccall Mine, one of the Selby pits, which was a huge advantage to starting my research. It is my intention to research all aspects of this marvel of mining and civil engineering and will include the history, concept, geology, mines rescue provision, planning, including the public inquiry, design and social impact that the Selby Superpit had on the 110 square miles of villages and on the town of Selby.

All information and memories are correct to the best of my knowledge. Sorry if the information about Riccall Mine seems more in depth but that is where I worked as a coalface and H.V. installation electrician so most of the information is from my own experiences or friends I worked with. Anyone who has further information about any of the Selby Mines please let me know and I will edit accordingly.

So … let’s get started.

My grateful thanks to Eddie Downs for his permission to reference his book ‘Yorkshire Collieries 1947 – 1994’ which has proven to be an invaluable resource and an inspiration for this blog.
Downes, W., n.d. Yorkshire Collieries, 1947-1994.

Photographs of Dosco tunnelling machinery kindly provided by my mate Rich Teasdale ( Rich Tea ) who worked as a field service engineer for Dosco Mining Machinery.