Wath Collieries
In 1819 Fitzwilliam Collieries operated a pit at Brampton Bierlow in addition to collieries at Elsecar Old, Haugh, and Lawood. In 1821 Brampton Colliery renamed Rainber (Rainborough) Colliery. This would indicate that it was situated to the east of Elsecar near what is now the Barnsley border. There's a Coaley Lane and a Coaley Farm to the north of Wentworth which might give us a clue.
Large areas around the town of Wath upon Dearne in the valley of the River Dearne were turned over to coal mining and its attendant industries in the second half of the 19th Century. It brought employment for many and enormous wealth for some. The pall of smoke and the stench from the coke works hung over the area until the 1980s when all the collieries and works were closed. Much of the area has now been reclaimed and the land put to more modern uses.
Cortonwood Colliery
I have found conflicting details about Cortonwood. According to Wikipedia Cortonwood Colliery was sunk in 1973 (do they mean 1937?) a year after the formation of the Brampton Colliery Company. However another site records that it was owned by Cortonwood Collieries Co. Ltd., Wombwell, Barnsley, Yorks prior to nationalisation. The extensive tips that used to exist south of Brampton were recorded as disused on a map from the 1980s incline me to the earlier date.
Johnny who used to pick coal on the tip back in the 1930s has been in touch to say that Cortonwood was sunk in 1873. For those of you who live in more civilised places coal picking used to take place on most of the tips around here: certainly I've seen men picking at Smithwoody tip only twenty years ago. Pieces of coal too small to use for other purposes were recycled from the tip, bagged and then used to keep your and your family warm or sold to make a few bob. Where I live now at Rawmarsh old men used the dig out the shaley layers of coal near the surface at Stubbin and use the resulting product to warm their greenhouses in the winter. I haven't seen anybody doing this for a few years now.
Just before the Second World War nealry 2000 men worked at Cortonwood. By 1970 this has reduced to 900 miners who produced 400,000 tonnes per annum.
In March 1984, the National Coal Board announced that the mine was due to close, this becoming the "final straw" which brought about the long running UK miners' strike (1984 - 1985). Cortonwood Colliery closed in 1986. The miners were transferred to other pits or made redundant. The Cortonwood site was extensively coal washed before redevelopment. Cortonwood now consists of houses, an industrial estate, a supermarket, a restaurant, and many more buildings which are appearing by the month.
Manvers Main
Manvers Main at Wath consisted of three collieries. The first was sunk in the late 1890s, the second 1900 - 1901 but when the third shaft was started has eluded me. Manvers was, in fact, a complex of collieries, the original sinkings being known as "Old Manvers", the later sinkings as "New Manvers". On 4 March 1945 the colliery suffered an accident which caused the death of 5 underground workers. The cause was an explosion of firedamp ignited by sparks from a damaged trailing cable.
Manvers was owned by Manvers Main Collieries Ltd., Wath-on-Dearne, Rotherham, Yorks in 1945 and became part of British coal in the 1947 nationalisation. It was part of one the largest, smelliest, and dirtiest concentrations of industry in South Yorkshire with coking ovens, by-products plants and vast railway yards, as well as the pits. Within the complex was the Regional headquarters and laboratories of British Coal.
In the 1950s British Coal pursued a policy called rationalisation and Manvers became the centre of coal output from a number of local collieries (known as the South Manvers complex) linked below ground including Wath Main and Kilnhurst.
The colliery complex was closed on 25 March 1988, the coke and by-products factories in 1991. This left behind a huge area of dereliction, tip and slurry ponds. The land remained derelict until the mid 1990s when the government started a regeneration programme with the assistance of the European Social Fund. Manvers, and the adjoining areas that were formerly the Wath Main Colliery and the Wath marshalling yard were bulldozed, landscaped and are now an area of light industry and commerce part called Manvers Park.
The plans for a country park at Wath gave way to financial necessity and the land was sold in 2001 for various developments including for a 9 hole golf course with driving range, hotel, and restaurants. In 2011 work is going ahead developing the housing and recreational facilities on this site.
Wath Main
In 1873 the sinking of the first shaft of Wath Main was begun. The workings reaching the highly-prized Barnsley seam three years later in 1876. To gain access to lower reserves the shafts were deepened, first in 1912 to reach the Parkgate seam and then, in 1923, to the Silkstone seam. In 1930 the Meltonfield seam was reached. Between 1933 and 1934 conveyors and coal cutting machines were installed. By 1970 there were over 30 miles of underground road and 8.7 miles of conveyor.
The colliery was operated by the Wath Main Coal Company Limited. The colliery became part of the National Coal Board on nationalization in 1947 and it was amalgamated, along with other local collieries, with the adjacent Manvers Main Colliery on 1 January 1986.
With Manvers Main it was part of one the largest, smelliest, and dirtiest concentrations of industry in South Yorkshire with coking ovens and vast railway yards, as well as the pits. By 1980 400,000 tonnes of coal were produced and for every tonne of it, 3.5 tonnes of water were pumped out into the lakes and slurry pits.
Wath Main closed in the 1980s on 25 March 1988 and the site has been reclaimed and is now Manvers Park and new trading and housing estates.
Wath Concentration Yard
Although not strictly a pit, mine or what have you I thought I'd mention Wath Concentration Yard here. This was a complex of railways and sidings through which the coal was exported so it is not inappropriate. Various railways ran through the Yard and out into the wider world.
- In 1840 the Midland Railway (LMS) which ran between Derby and Leeds opened. This line closed in 1987.
- In 1850 the Great Central Railway (also called the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Railway) opened. In 1907 this company brought into commission the first purpose-built hump marshalling yard in Britain at the heart of the South Yorkshire coalfield. Special locomotives 0.8.4 tank engines, nicknamed "Wath Daisies", were built for use here. In 1952 the section between Wath and Manchester was electrified.
- In 1903 the Hull and Barnsley Railway opened. This was used to export the coal via Hull Docks.
Local passenger services ceased in 1959. All coal trains ceased running in 1989.