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Greasbrough Collieries

Early in the 1700s the mining of coal was well established in the Greasbrough area. The Parkgate seam runs close to the surface here. There were pits at Barbot Hall, Greasbrough Fields, Ginhouse Farm and over towards Kimberworth. The exploitation of the Parkgate seam at Bassingthorpe was leased to the Fentons who were the largest coal masters in 18th Century Rotherham West Riding. Generally known as Greasbrough Colliery the pits at Bassingthorpe were many shallow, short-lived shafts sunk close to one another. By 1776 there were ten working shafts and many more abandoned ones. By 1763 a wooden tramway was built to move the coal from Bassingthorpe to the canal wharf near Beatson Clark. The Bassingthorpe collieries closed in the 1830s. Other pits were at Car House, Whitegate and Wingfield; and probably more besides. I've found a list of 22 of them.

Car House

The name for this site that appears on older maps from the 18th and 18th Centuries is Gin House. The colliery was situated on Car House Lane off Greasbrough Road opposite the Gas Works is still shown on maps from the '60s and '70s. Car House colliery was purchased by John Brown & Co in 1873. In 1913 there was an accident caused by an inrush of water into the mine which caused the death of 8 miners.

Road and pit are both now gone. I think that there is a chemical company on part of the site and the rest is a recycling and landfill site.

Greasbrough Colliery

I have little information about this but have found a note that it closed down in 1909.

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