Kellingley Colliery

Kellingley Colliery stands in flat North Yorkshire farmland five kilometres east of Ferrybridge power station. It was Britain’s last deep-pit coal mine, owned by UK Coal, and closed in December 2015. The colliery began life in the 1960s when geologists proved there were seven workable seams beneath the site. Two vertical shafts were sunk through waterlogged sandstone and clay to a depth of more than 800 metres. Brine was pumped through boreholes to freeze the ground so miners could work in sub-zero temperatures and install concrete linings. The pit produced up to 900 tonnes of coal an hour from the Beeston seam for local power stations. At its peak it employed about 2,000 men, many of whom had moved from Scottish pits that closed in the 1960s. Miners took part in the 1984 strike; one man was killed by a lorry during the dispute. In 1990 and 1991 the colliery’s extension required the nearby church tower to be dismantled and rebuilt on new foundations. Sporadic strikes occurred again in 2004 after workers received £7.2 million from a government aid scheme. Visitors today find a levelled site where winding towers once stood. Four steel plumb lines were kept in each shaft to check alignment during sinking. A memorial lists seventeen names of men who died underground. On the day after closure, thousands marched from Knottingley Town Hall to the miners’ social club. A television series later told the story of the colliery’s final weeks. The land is now held for future commercial development under a ten-year plan.