Glapwell - oldminer.co.uk

 

 

 

Glapwell Colliery was one of the new Top Hards collieries of the Sheepbridge Coal and iron Company in an era when the country required good coking and steam coal. The colliery is actually sited in Ault Hucknall but was named after the nearby village of Glapwell, a village which at this time only constituted 18 houses, some nearly 500 constructed throughout the life of the pit.

 

Initially the shafts were sunk to the lucrative Top Hard seam at a depth of 300 yards and a link to Langwith colliery underground was planned some 4.5 miles away, at the number two shaft sinking was continued from the Top Hards to prove the lower seam reserves to a depth of 680 yards by 1918. A third shaft was sunk 1920-1934 some 657 yards into the lower seams

 

Leases were taken out by the company with the principle land owners in the Glapwell area namely the Reverend Hallowes of Glapwell Hall, a sixty year lease for 1,100 acres and with the Arkwrights of Sutton Scarsdale Hall for coal under their lands at Palterton.

 

The company attempted to edge its bets in the development of its coal reserves by the company being sole developers of the new pits at Glapwell and Langwith whilst it joined in with the Staveley company to develop a new coalfield at Newstead. The financial commitments had dire consequences on the company purse leading to the floatation of a new company which was a combination of both the Staveley and Sheepbridge companies. This eased the financial constraints on the company and allowed the Newstead development to complete unhindered.

 

The Sheepbridge company reached the Top Hard or Barnsley Bed seam in July 1883 and production commenced from a colliery which used two main shafts and the later Bramley Vale drift mine of 1954 to extract the coal. In 1916 the company leased the lower seams at Glapwell to give the colliery new life, as only the upper seams had been worked in the thirty years prior. The extent of the mining operations here can be seen by the fact that there are at least nine shafts and the two or possibly three drifts in the immediate area of the main colliery site (from Newstead Coal Office plans of the area). The colliery continued to expand throughout its life and leases for coal bearing lands locally were purchased and exploited.

 

The colliery had mixed fortunes through the two World Wars but was big enough and stable enough to still be in existence to be vested into the National Coal Board in 1947.

 

 

During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s plans were drawn up and a small experimental coking bye-product plant was built on similar lines to the Coalite coking system but this was a failure and the plant was closed.

 

In 1954 it was decided to  sink two surface drifts into the Clowne seam at 1,140 yards at a gradient of 1 in 5, these were called the Bramley Vale Drifts and were incorporated into the Glapwell colliery complex, they closed in 1970. Whilst the two pits were in operation they produced 1,000,000 tons of coal per annum. On closure of the drifts in 1970 and prior to Glapwell collieries closure in 1974 the colliery produced 400,000 tons of saleable coal per annum.

 

The colliery took part in the industrial disputes and the General Strike of the early 20th Century and were usually on the losing side and by having their wages cut as a result.

 

 

 

 

Top Hard.

First Waterloo.

Dunsil.

 

11^th. August 1882-17^th.July 1883 sinking of shafts.

Abandoned 19^th. August 1960.

 

 

 

 

Deep Hard.

Low Main.

Blackshale.

 

Sunk in 1882

 

No.2 shaft upcast. Depth 306 yards 14 foot diameter.

Deepened 1924 to 669 yards and 18 foot diameter.

No. 3 Downcast shaft.

Sunk 1924 to 655 yards 18 foot diameter.

Closed 28^th. June 1974.

 

 

Worked the Clowne Seam.

No.1 Drift 1138 yards long. Reached coal November 1957.  

No.2 Drift 1140 yards long. Reached coal in November 1957.  

Closed January 1970.

 

The first of the two local railways to be constructed in the Bolsover area was the Midland railway or originally a branch line construct from Bolsover colliery station to Glapwell colliery station which was completed about 1865. (It later linked up to Pleasley and other collieries via the Rowthorne Tunnel).

 

The Doe Lea Branch line extension was started in 1884 and completed by Autumn 1890 when in September that year the single line was open to passengers. In June 1892 five hundred miners and their wives and families left Glapwell station at 2am and travelled to Llandudno, returning at midnight.

 

This line also carried men into the local collieries by Paddy Mail, the train was laid on by the colliery owners and the railway company to provide transport to and from work at the collieries. The carriages were crude and worn out, they had bench seats, windows missing or were just empty coal wagons for the miners to ride in 'The Paddy Mail' was provided because it was illegal for work men, in the days before pit head baths, to frequent ordinary railway carriages in their 'dirt' (working clothes), and the men if caught were liable to be prosecuted by the railway company. The main runs for the trains were from Chesterfield to the Staveley collieries and iron works, Dronfield to the Grassmoor collieries and coke works and Staveley to Glapwell colliery. Coal from this colliery and Langwith colliery were exported worldwide by the railway companies with the coal being shipped both locally and to and then from the extensive coal handling facilities of the Humber ports.

 

 

 

On Tuesday morning a sad accident occurred on the Midland Railway branch line at the Glapwell Colliery belonging to the Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co. A Midland Railway Company’s engine was engaged in shunting operations when an office boy at the colliery named Edward Turner 18 years of age attempted to cross the line just in front of the locomotive he was knocked down and ran over by the engine being fearfully mangled. He was at once removed to the Chesterfield Hospital but he died from his injuries shortly before 11.00 a.m. about three hours after the accident. Enoch Turner a miner of Doe Lea in the Parish of Ault Hucknall identified the body of that of his son.

 

 

 

(The winding engineman, enginewright, and another banks man then gave more details.) The cause of him falling was owing to the cage catching the timbers on which he stood and so precipitating him backwards and down the pit. The jury found a verdict of accidental death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 With reference to the recent railway accident at Glapwell we are informed by the Midland Railway Company that they have come to terms with the miners who were in the accident. The Company have agreed to pay all the men a days wage and substantial compensation to those that were injured.

 

 

 

 

23rd March 1895.

 

On Saturday last Mr. C. Snow the genial manager of Glapwell Colliery was presented with a gold watch and a purse of gold valued at £14 as a token of the high esteem in which he his held by the officials and workmen employed at the colliery.

 

First colliery photograph is copyright Roberts and produced by the Industrial Railway Society.

 

(IRS). 17/04/1949.

 

 

Th rest of the colliery photographs and railway articles are from the collections of Bill Skevington, Glynn Waite & Mike King.

Situated at

SK. 44689 36667. By my GPS on site.

SK. 446805 366716. By Coal Authority internet map.

I am not sure where this fits into the history of Glapwell colliery.

Area showing signs of past coal working mounded grey and red shale with several lumps of top grade coal in it. A bridge over a stream nearby has been remade several times with steel girders and is now in a very poor state of repair.

The shaft site is shown on the Coal Authority maps of the area. I have as yet been unable to find any historical references to it.

According to the Geological maps it would appear that there is a major underground fault in the Top Hard seam concluding at the site of the shaft. One inch Geological map 1860's to 1940's.