The Elsecar Collieries were a series of coal mines sunk in and around Elsecar

Elsecar

Elsecar is a village forming part of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. Like many villages in the area, it was for many years a coal mining village until the widespread pit closures during the 1980s. Elsecar is next to the villages of Hoyland and Jump.Elsecar is...

, a small village to the south of Barnsley

Barnsley

Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, north of the city of Sheffield, south of Leeds and west of Doncaster. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and...

 in what is now South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, but was traditionally in the West Riding

West Riding

West Riding could refer to:Areas:*West Riding of Yorkshire, England*West Riding of Lindsey in Lincolnshire, England*West Riding of County Cork, Ireland*West Riding of County Galway, IrelandTransport companies:*West Riding Automobile Company...

 of Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

.

The last operating mine, Elsecar Main, closed in 1984 and with its closure ended 230 years of mining in the village

Elsecar Old Colliery

The colliery was started around 1750 by a Richard Bingley but it was taken over 1752 by the 2nd Marquis of Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, KG, PC , styled The Hon. Charles Watson-Wentworth before 1733, Viscount Higham between 1733 and 1746, Earl of Malton between 1746 and 1750 and The Earl Malton in 1750, was a British Whig statesman, most notable for his two terms as Prime...

 and by 1757 comprised eight pits located in and around Elsecar Green. The pits were sunk to a depth of 15 metres to exploit the Barnsley Bed. The pits were described as follows:

• 3 Air Pits – Ventilation Shafts?
• 2 Open Pits – Open cast mining?
• 1 Closed Pit – Abandoned Pit?
• 1 Working Pit - Pit used to haul coal?
• 1 Sinking Pit – Pit being sunk?

The pits were worked using a horse gin – a horse powered winch. During the collieries initial phase from 1750 until about 1795 it employed around 9 men. In 1782 the 2nd Marquis of Rockingham died and his estates were inherited by his cousin the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. The 4th Earl Fitzwilliam expanded Elsecar Old Colliery with addition of steam winding engines in 1796 and by 1848 the pit was employing 87 Men & Boys. The colliery was renamed Elsecar High Colliery in the same year. By now the colliery was centred around the Milton Foundry. The colliery closed in following exhaustion of the seam in the area 1888.

Elsecar New Colliery

This colliery was sunk around 1795 by Earl Fitzwilliam in the area to the South of the existing Elsecar Workshops and the site is still marked by the colliery’s original Newcomen pumping engine. The colliery was probably sunk to allow the Fitzwilliams to expand their coal production and exploit the new transport opportunities presented by the Elsecar branch of the Dearne & Dove Canal which was given parliamentary approval in 1793 and reached Elsecar in 1799. Prior to the completion of the canal the coal was either sold locally or shipped by cart to Kilnhurst on the river Don.

The colliery consisted of 3 shafts, 2 coal winding shafts and 1 pumping shafts. The shafts ran to a depth of 120 feet where they reached the Barnsley seam. The steam winding engines were installed in 1796 and a second pumping engine was added in 1823 when the shafts were sunk further to reach the Parkgate seam. The colliery was expanded further in 1837, with the addition of a new shaft at Jump which was known as the Jump pit. By 1848 when the colliery was renamed Elsecar Mid Colliery 121 men and boys were employed. This colliery was abandoned in the mid 1850s as the Simon Wood Colliery started production.

Elsecar Low Colliery or Hemingfield Colliery

Work to sink this colliery started around 1840 but took 6-8 years to complete and the first significant coal was mined in 1848 when 1000 tonnes a day was being extracted (4). The major difficulty was the penetration of water into the workings and dealing with the large amounts of firedamp present. The colliery consisted of two shafts; a working shaft and a smaller diameter pumping shaft for draining the colliery. The colliery suffered a significant accident on 21 December 1852 when a firedamp explosion killed 10 miners and injured 12. The inquiry found that the explosion had been caused by reckless behaviour of the colliers; a ventilation door had been propped open which resulted in firedamp accumulating and some colliers using unguarded safety lamps. The Earl Fitzwilliams Mine Superintendent, Benjamin Biram was criticized by the inquiry for absence of printed rules in the colliery, inadequate maintenance of the lamps and poor supervision of the workforce but the judge did praise the ventilation arrangements in the pit which prevented extensive loss of life like those that accompanied explosions in other pits in the area

Simon Wood Colliery

The Simon Wood Colliery was sunk in 1853 to 85 meters to the Barnsley bed. This colliery with two shafts replaced the Elsecar Mid Colliery and continued production until 1903 when it in turn was replaced by the Elsecar Main Colliery.

Elsecar Main

Coal extraction proper began at the mine between 1905 and 1908 when the shafts were sunk to the Parkgate seam at 333 metres. Other seams worked were the Silkstone, Thorncliffe and the Swallow Wood seam. This colliery was closed in October 1983