Caphouse Colliery, originally known as Overton Colliery, was a coal mine in Overton, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It was situated on the Denby Grange estate owned by the Lister Kaye family, and was worked from the 18th century until 1985. It reopened as the Yorkshire Mining Museum in 1988, and is now the National Coal Mining Museum for England.
The colliery was on the Denby Grange Estate, home of the Lister Kayes, in an area where coal had been mined for many years. Coal was close to the surface and the Flockton Thick Seam was mined in 1793. [1] Leases for mining coal were held by Timothy Smith who leased the original Denby Grange Colliery north of Flockton and James Milnes who mined coal at Emroyd and Old Flockton. Some coal was supplied locally, but much more was sent to distant markets to the east of Pontefract via the Calder and Hebble Navigation. Smith's coal pits were under the control of Sir John Lister Kaye by 1817 and were managed by estate managers including John Blenkinsop of the Middleton Collieries who oversaw the enlargement of the enterprise in the 1820s. [2] His son, Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye took over the lease for getting coal from the Overton Colliery on his own estate from the executors of James Milnes in 1827 and began to expand the colliery. Milnes' pits were linked to the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Horbury Bridge by a wooden wagonway which was later laid with iron rails. [3]
Hope Pit was sunk close by in 1827 and the Blossom Pit on the opposite side of the Wakefield to Austerlands turnpike road, the A642, was sunk by 1840. Hope Pit's shaft descends 215 yards and produced coal after 1829. The coal was wound by horse gins until the 1920s. It was one of the earliest Yorkshire coal mines to use electrical coal cutters. [4] The Inman Water Shaft was sunk to 97 yards in about 1840 to pump water from Hope Pit and its beam engine house survives. [5] The shaft was later deepened to the New Hards Seam. The pits were originally ventilated by furnaces at the shaft bottoms. [6]
Caphouse Colliery was again developed in 1876 when the steam winding engine house, boiler yard, chimney, stone heapstead and ventilation shaft were completed for Emma Lister Kay, the sole proprietor. [7] The headframe is built of pitch pine with steel braces, a late survivor of its type. The Caphouse shaft is 11 feet in diameter and although it had been deepened and widened may have been the oldest working mine shaft in the country in the 1980s. [4] In 1892 colliers were paid 4/6d. per day and 13/6d. in 1938. [8] In 1901 the colliery employed 93 workers and this total rose to 206 in 1911, and 240 in 1918. [9]
The colliery was sold in 1907. After the sale, the name Denby Grange Collieries referred to Caphouse and the Prince of Wales Colliery (locally known as Wood Pit) situated near New Hall in Flockton. [10]
Pithead baths and an administration block were built around 1937 and surface buildings upgraded between 1943 and 1946. The colliery became part of the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947. A drift mine opened in 1974. In 1978 the colliery employed 230 men winning 4,000 tons of coal per week from the Beeston Seam. [4] The coal reserves were exhausted by 1985 and the colliery closed. [11] It reopened as the Yorkshire Mining Museum in 1988. [5]
Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye (1801-1871) linked Hope Pit, Caphouse, and Victoria Pits at Netherton to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Barnsley branch and the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Calder Grove by a private mineral line. [12] John Marsden who managed the colliery from 1852 for Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye designed and built the line to avoid tolls charged for using the turnpike. [13] The line began near Hope Pit with a tunnel under the Wakefield - Austerlands turnpike. Two rope-hauled inclines the second partly in a tunnel were needed before the line reached the navigation or the railway. Two locomotives, four-wheeled Solferino and six-wheeled Balaklava were bought to operate the line. [14] The Prince of Wales Pit (subsequently named Denby Grange Colliery) was sunk close to the line near New Hall Wood in 1870. [15]
The mineral railway fell out of use apart from the end section when road transport was favoured over rail in the late 1940s. [9]
Woolley Colliery is a village on the border between the Barnsley and Wakefield districts in Yorkshire, England. The village is now in South Yorkshire, while the former colliery was in the Wakefield Rural Ward in West Yorkshire. The village is known locally as Mucky Woolley, as a tribute to its coalmining heritage and to distinguish it from the more affluent village of Woolley two miles away.
The National Coal Mining Museum for England is based at the site of Caphouse Colliery in Overton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1988 as the Yorkshire Mining Museum and was granted national status in 1995.
Netherton is a village in the City of Wakefield metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It lies about 4 miles south-west of Wakefield, 3 miles south of Ossett, 1 mile south of Horbury. The village is in the Wakefield Rural ward of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council. The village name is shown on map "Dvcatvs Eboracensis pars occidentalis" from 1646.
Flockton is a village in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, halfway between Huddersfield, 7 miles away and Wakefield, 8 miles away.
Agecroft Colliery was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield that opened in 1844 in the Agecroft district of Pendlebury, Lancashire, England. It exploited the coal seams of the Middle Coal Measures of the Lancashire Coalfield. The colliery had two spells of use; the first between 1844 and 1932, when the most accessible coal seams were exploited, and a second lease of life after extensive development in the late 1950s to access the deepest seams.
The Maltby Main Colliery was a coal mine located 7 miles (11 km) east of Rotherham on the eastern edge of Maltby, South Yorkshire, England. The mine was closed in 2013.
Kellingley Colliery was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east of Ferrybridge power station. It was owned and operated by UK Coal.
The Elsecar Collieries were the coal mines sunk in and around Elsecar, a small village to the south of Barnsley in what is now South Yorkshire, but was traditionally in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Steetley Colliery is a former colliery on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border.
Aldwarke Main Colliery was a coal mine sunk in the Don Valley, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.
The Flockton Collieries were small, shallow coal pits that exploited the coal seams north of the village of Flockton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The coal seams, the Flockton Thick, which was up to 48 inches, and the Flockton Thin at about 15 inches, were named from where they outcropped.
The Ingleton Coalfield is in North Yorkshire, close to its border with Lancashire in north-west England. Isolated from other coal-producing areas, it is one of the smallest coalfields in Great Britain.
Cleworth Hall Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1874 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Wheldale Colliery was a coal mine located in Castleford, Yorkshire, England which produced coal for 117 years. It was accessed from Wheldon Road.
Sitlington, historically Shitlington, was a township in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Thornhill in the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley in the West Riding of Yorkshire comprising the villages and hamlets of Middlestown, Netherton, Overton and Midgley. The h was dropped from Shitlington and Sitlington was adopted in 1929 with the approval of the county council. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 5,963.
Shuttle Eye Colliery was a coal mine on the South Yorkshire Coalfield at Grange Moor between Wakefield and Huddersfield on the A642 road, in England.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Barrow Colliery was a coal mine in Worsborough, South Yorkshire, England. It was first dug in 1873, with the first coal being brought to the surface in January 1876. It was the scene of a major incident in 1907 when seven miners died. After 109 years of coaling operations, the mine was closed in May 1985.
Upton Colliery was a coal mine near to the village of Upton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The site was 8.5 miles (13.7 km) north west of Doncaster and 10 miles (16 km) north east of Barnsley. Coal was transhipped from the colliery by the former Hull and Barnsley Railway line.
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