Pits Around Nottingham.


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Too deep for a normal tunnel Clif ton, it was started at 499feet deeo and was driven 176 yards south past the major fault. My guess was to prove the fault. Test borings around Ruddington before the pit was sunk, indicated seams were much deeper than at Wollaton, and the tunnel was driven to see where the fault was....Just a guess.

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Any of the older members work "dahn pit".??? I worked for Lord Robens during the 60's at Clifton, then when it closed on to Cotgrave. Remember all those headstocks around Nottingham? Babbington, Gedl

Funny I was gonna post a thread on Pits. Thanks Anyone got an image of the old Clifton Colliery? I can remeber it being there when I came to Nottingham in 63

Seems a bit odd though spending money driving a road in rock, which is expensive, I'd have thought they would have driven it in coal, the shaft only went to 792 feet, which was a little past the deep hard seam, if they drive in the deep hard, they'd have been producing money right away.

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Is there still a Mines Rescue Unit still out Mansfield way?

footballers Bobby and Jackie Charlton had a brother called Tom who was in mines rescue. I believe he died a couple of years ago.

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Do't you just love those coal seam names?

Deep soft

Low Main

High Hazel

Top Hard

Deep Hard

Black Shale

And there must be several I unremember

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And they differ in name from Derbyshire, Notts to Yorks even though they are the same seams,

Try these, I listed them on my mining forum.

Not all of these seams can be worked, or found at all Notts pits, some are too thin, others too close to the surface and others missing as they were eroded at the outcrop to the west of the coalfield..

High Main.

First Wales.

Second Wales.

Swinton Pottery.

Clown or Main Hard.

Main Bright.

Two Foot.

Furnace or Low Bright.

High Hazles.

Cinderhill.

1st St John's.

2nd St John's.

Comb.

Top Hard or Barnsley.

Dunsil.

1st Waterloo.

2nd Waterloo.

Waterloo Marker.

Top Second Waterloo.

Bottom Second Waterloo.

3rd Waterloo.

4th Waterloo.

First Ell.

Second Ell.

52 seams in the "upper measures.

The Lower Measures.

Brown Rake.

Joan.

Chavery.

Sitwell.

Roof Soft.

Deep Soft.

Roof Coal.

Smithies.

Deep Hard.

1st Piper.

2nd Piper. These two seams when "joined were called the Parkgate.

Cockleshell.

Low Tupton/Tupton or Low Main.

3/4.

Yard.

Blackshale.

Ashgate..........These two seams are sometimes joined with just a thin layer of dirt.

Mickley.

Walkers.

Kilburn/Wingfield Flags.

Norton.

Forty Yards.

Alton.

1st Smalley.

2nd Smalley.

Holbrook.

Belperlawn.

Baslow.

Base of the Carboniferous strata and start of the Millstone Grit.

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just before I left Annesley at the end of '69 there was a survey done that located 29 'workable' seams beneath the Deep soft being mined at that time. Britain is a coal island and yet we are paying through the nose to import fuels! They want 'clean' energy yet a carbon capture scheme that would make a giant Scottish power station 'clean' has been rejected by the Scots Govt. Bloody minded madness I call it. They spend billions on fecking windmills yet reject a scheme that could provide work and almost limitless fuel for the future.

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Ayupmeducks: Are the lower seams, such as Baslow, a better grade of coal and the upper more like lignite?

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Most are too thin to work Compo, some of the thin seams are so variable throughout the coalfield they were worked at some pits but less than a foot thick at others.

Take top hard, it was worked at Bestwood but too close to the surface at Wollaton, too close to water bearing strata at Clifton. A lot of the upper measures were missing from the western Notts pits and Derbyshire pits.

All those seams below the Ashgate were unworkable, less than a foot thick.

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Thanks for the gen.

What was the name of the superpit in north Notts. that opened with some imported coal for the film crew in about 1968ish. It was meant to be the new million tonner but I don't know if it ever reached its goals.

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No idea Compo, but when I went on an electronics/Winster course at the training centre, I recall being told of a "whitewash" at I think Ollerton, where a face was loaded with coal driving the shearer manually, stopped and the men being withdrawn from the face, then journalists brought down to see the first ROLF face in operation. "Can we go on the face and see it working" said one of the reporters, absolutely not, it's illegal to be on a face working automatically..

Well it was, but all they would have seen was the face conveyor running...LOL

Needless to say ROLF never worked, the idea was good, but technologically it was flawed back then, ironically the NCB sunk millions into it even after they knew it could never work.

The incident you're on about, didn't it happen at Cotgrave??? But it would have happened in the early 60's as in 68 they had five faces working in Deep Hard, I know, I worked on all five faces during my short stay there.

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Thanks for the gen.

What was the name of the superpit in north Notts. that opened with some imported coal for the film crew in about 1968ish. It was meant to be the new million tonner but I don't know if it ever reached its goals.

Bevercotes?

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Not sure if Bevercotes had any problems other than it was a hot deep mine, it also had oil seepage into it's seams.

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Ayupmeducks: Are the lower seams, such as Baslow, a better grade of coal and the upper more like lignite?

The simple answer is no. All the seams in Notts Derbys & Yorkshire are bituminous coals. The coal being a natural substance varies from seam to seam, and within a seam both most seams contain bands of different quality.

Coal quality both in situ and as sold was normally analysed for Moisture, Ash, Volatile Matter and Fixed Carbon. Sulphur content and Chlorine content, its ability to produce coke and the fusion point of the ash were determined. These all varied from seam to seam and colliery to colliery.

A few examples from No6 Area of the East Midlands Division:-

The High Main seam at Bestwood, Calverton, Hucknall & Linby had a high ash fusion temperature and a low Sulphur content.

The Main Bright seam at Hucknall was very low in ash but was thin. It produced fine house coal.

The Deep Soft at Babbington was low in Ash & Sulphur but high in Chlorine, again a good house coal, but the Deep Hard was not liked as a house coal. It was also had a higher ash content.

The Piper seam at Clifton & Wollaton was higher in Sulphur as was the Blackshale seam.

None of the coals produced was suitable for coke ovens - the coking properties were too poor.

Its quite a complicated subject!

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Most are too thin to work Compo, some of the thin seams are so variable throughout the coalfield they were worked at some pits but less than a foot thick at others.

Take top hard, it was worked at Bestwood but too close to the surface at Wollaton, too close to water bearing strata at Clifton. A lot of the upper measures were missing from the western Notts pits and Derbyshire pits.

All those seams below the Ashgate were unworkable, less than a foot thick.

The Alton & Belperlawn seams were worked at Denby Drury Lowe colliery in Derbyshire.

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Seam thickness varies enormously, even over a few yards, remember coal was formed from vegetation, and if one area of a forest is high density it will form a thicker layer of rotting vegetation, I've formulated some charts of some seams and how they varied in depth and thickness in Notts.

Take for instance the Deep Hard seam at Clifton Colliery, last Deep Hard face was 41's way down the bottom end of the pit, south east, where it was a little over 42 inches thick, at the south west side near Ruddington, 12's face was around 62 inches thick, in the shafts it was measured at 67 inches thick.

At Wollaton Deep Hard was measured at 58 inches in the shafts and at Silverhill was 31 inches thick. At Hucknall Deep Hard was 72 inches thick!!

At Cotgrave Deep Hard was 43 inches thick.

1St Piper at Cliftons shafts was 40 inches, but the last face, 43's on the far south east side was around 36 inches and I was told some areas at Clifton where 1st Piper was mined it was over five feet thick!!

1st Piper at Wollaton was 24 inches thick and at Cotgrave was 18 inches thick, but they were lucky, 1st and 2nd Piper were close enough together to be mined and known as the Parkgate seam at 41 inches thick plus a dirt band separating them.

Deep Soft, the seam above Deep Hard, at Cliftons shafts was 60 inches, at Cotgrave 40 inches, at Wollaton 36 inches, Hucknall 34 ins.

The seams below the Blackshale seam varied from an inch thick in some areas to workable in Derbyshire, but disappeared further east.

In some of the boreholes on the far eastern edge of the Notts coalfield they are not even named as they are so thin they are just entered as "inferior coal seams".

The upper coal measures in the Notts coalfield are totally missing, the Notts coalfield starts with the "Middle measures" starting with the High Main seam. Again the top seams are not found at all collieries, the first seam encountered at Clifton Colliery shafts was the Cinderhill at 190ft 8ins at 32 inches, then Top Hard, also known as the Barnsley Bed, the famous Yorkshire coal seam, at 219ft 8 ins and 71 ins thick. Clifton couldn't work this seam as it was plagued with water from the Bunter just above it. Top Hard was 42 inches at Cotgrave.

I do have seams, depths and thicknesses in my notes at various collieries, but haven't added them to the charts as of yet.

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There's a good site for research of seams and depths of seams in shaft sinking charts and borehole charts at the BGS's site.

http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/boreholescans/boreholescans.html

By the look of the amount of boreholes drilled in the UK, it's a wonder the Island hasn't sunk beneath the sea...LOL

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How deep were those seams Brian?

Not very deep, they were close to the outcrop. A lot of the Denby area has since been opencasted. They opencasted some pillar and stall workings and found shovels and such. I visited one site where they had found a small staple shaft (from one seam to another without going to the surface).

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There's several mining museums around the country Mick, Big Pit in South Wales, there's also one in Durham, the online museum Durham Mining Museum, Beamish and I forget the others now.

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Thanks Stu & John.

I went down a pit with School in 1968.

Think it was a careers visit. Probably with Joe Spungin at that time?

It might have been Annesley or Newstead??

Was it a training pit at the time?

I never went Dahn Pit tho :)

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No, those two collieries were working pits Mick, were just taken to Boots shopfitting workshops, places like that, never thought about an apprenticeship with the NCB until they started mass recruitments in the early 60's or I'd have started with them at 15.

One of the things with the NCB, during the first year you were just a "Craft apprentice" and could change your mind as to which craft you wanted to pursue, electrical, mechanical, bricklaying, joinery, blacksmithing, turning or whatever. You didn't have to go underground either, there was the Central Workshops, where you could learn to overhaul mining equipment, most of us signed on at a particular pit though.

Your career didn't end when you received your trade certificate either, you could go on if you wished to get an engineers ticket or higher! You could even attend day release or nights school and get mining qualifications like a Deputy's ticket working up to Mine Managers ticket if you so wished. The NCB Industrial Relations Department encouraged anyone who wished to get better qualifications.

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It sounds like a good system to work in John.

But the health issues that raised their heads later made me really glad I did not go down!

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