This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2014) |
This is a list of coal mines in the United Kingdom, sorted between those operating in the 21st century and those closed earlier.
The last operating deep coal mine in the United Kingdom, Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire, closed in December 2015. [1] After 2015, most continuing coal mines were collieries owned by freeminers, or open pit mines of which there were 26 in 2014. [2] However, since December 2023 -with the closure of Ffos-y-fran- no major opencast coal mine operates. The largest mine is Aberpergwm, which is a drift mine. For example, in January 2024 the production of all opencast mines were around 1,000 tonnes while Aberpergwm (and other underground mines) produced around 7,000 tonnes. [3]
These coal mines closed in the 21st century or still operate.
Mine | Owner | Region | Production (tonnes) [a] | Manpower [a] | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bradley Surface Mine | Banks Group | County Durham | 340,000 | <30 (2018) | Closed August 2020 [4] |
Clipstone Colliery | RJB Mining | Nottinghamshire | ? | 1,300 (?) | Closed 2003 [5] |
Daw Mill | UK Coal | West Midlands | 3.25 million (2008) | 683 (2008) [6] | Closed 7 March 2013 [7] |
Hatfield Colliery | Hatfield Colliery Ltd | Yorkshire | 704,740 (2011) | 400 (2011) | Closed July 2015 [8] |
Hill Top Colliery | Grimebridge Colliery Company Ltd | Lancashire | ? | 3 (2011) | Closed, 2014 [9] |
Kellingley Colliery | UK Coal Operations Ltd | Yorkshire | 2,276,434 (2011) | 695 (2011) | Closed 18 December 2015 |
Maltby Main Colliery | UK Coal | Yorkshire | ? | <400 | Closed April 2013 |
Thoresby Colliery | UK Coal Operations Ltd | Nottinghamshire | 1,283,346 (2011) | 613 (2011) | Closed July 2015 |
Hartington | ? | Derbyshire | 87,000 | ? | Closed September, 2020 [10] |
Danygraig 4 drift mine | Three D's Mining Limited | Wales | ? | ? | Closed March 2021 |
Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme | Merthyr Tydfil | South Wales | 1,000,000 (at peak) | ? | Closed November 2023 [11] |
Aberpergwm drift mine | Energybuild Ltd | Wales | <100,000 | 160 (2021) | Operating |
Ayle Colliery (Quarry Drift) | Ayle Colliery Company Ltd | Cumbria | 1,000 | ? | Operating in Feb 2020 |
Hopewell Colliery | Rich Daniels [12] (Freeminer) | Forest of Dean | ? | ~1 (2018) | Operating [13] |
Wallsend Colliery & Morse's Level | Mike Howells [14] (Freeminer) | Forest of Dean | ? | ? | Operating |
Monument Colliery | Ray Ashly, Richard Daniels & Neil Jones [15] (Freeminers) | Forest of Dean | 250 (2011) | 3 (2011) | One of the only freemines in Forest of Dean operating as of 2002 [16] |
a For the year given.
These coal mines closed before the 21st century.
Mine | Traditional county | Opened | Closed | Peak manpower [a] | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
North East England | ||||||
Boldon Colliery | County Durham | 1866 | 1982 | (?) | ||
Castle Eden colliery [17] | County Durham | 1842 | 1959 | 891 (1880s) | ||
Dawdon Colliery [18] | County Durham | 5 October 1907 | 25 July 1991 | 3,798 (1930) | ||
Newbottle Colliery [19] | County Durham | 1774 | 1956 | 1,199 (1921) | ||
Shincliffe colliery [20] | County Durham | 1839 | 1875 | (?) | ||
East Midlands and Yorkshire | ||||||
Asfordby Colliery | Leicestershire | 1991 | 1997 | 490 | Last deep coal mine to be sunk in England. | |
Babbington Colliery | Nottinghamshire | 1841 | 1986 | |||
Bagworth Colliery | Leicestershire | 1832 | 1991 | |||
Hucknall No.1 Colliery | Nottinghamshire | 1861 | 1943 | |||
Hucknall No.2 Colliery | Nottinghamshire | 1865 | 1986 | |||
Ollerton Colliery | Nottinghamshire | 1920s | 1994 | |||
Silverwood Colliery | Yorkshire | 1900 | 1994 | |||
North West and North Staffordshire | ||||||
Ellerbeck Colliery | Lancashire | 1876 | 1965 | (?) | ||
Golborne Colliery [21] | Lancashire | 1860s | 1989 | (?) | Site of explosion (1979) in which 10 workers died. | |
Silverdale Colliery | Staffordshire | (?) | 1998 | (?) | Last active coal mine in Staffordshire. | |
South East England | ||||||
Snowdown Colliery [22] | Kent | 1907 | 1987 | |||
Betteshanger Colliery | Kent | 1927 | 1989 | |||
Tilmanstone Colliery | Kent | 1906 | 1986 | |||
Chislet Colliery | Kent | 1914 | 1969 |
Wwa With given year of peak.
The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "vesting day", 1 January 1947. In 1987, the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation, and its assets were subsequently privatised.
Horden is a village and electoral ward in County Durham, England. It is situated on the North Sea coast, to the east of Peterlee, approximately 12 miles south of Sunderland. Horden was a mining village until the closure of the Horden Colliery in 1987. Main features include the Welfare and Memorial Parks and St Mary's church. It is connected to the villages of Blackhall Colliery and Blackhall Rocks to its south by a spectacular rail viaduct which spans Castle Eden Dene near Denemouth. Horden Dene provides Horden's northern boundary with Easington Colliery.
Tower Colliery was the oldest continuously working deep-coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, until its closure in 2008. It was the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales Valleys. It was located near the villages of Hirwaun and Rhigos, north of the town of Aberdare in the Cynon Valley of South Wales.
Longannet coal mine was a deep mine complex in Fife, Scotland.
Freeminer is an ancient title given to coal or iron miners in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, who have earned the right to mine personal plots, known as gales.
UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest coal mining business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in Harworth, in Nottinghamshire. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The successor company that contains the former property division, Harworth Group, is still listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Mining in Wales provided a significant source of income to the economy of Wales throughout the nineteenth century and early to mid twentieth century. It was key to the Industrial Revolution in Wales, and to the whole of Great Britain.
Aberpergwm is the site of a colliery in the Vale of Neath near Glynneath in south Wales.
Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom ended in November 2023.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to just 587,000 tonnes in 2023. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.
Marley Hill is a former colliery village about six miles to the south west of Gateshead, near the border between Tyne and Wear and County Durham. It has been part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead since 1974. Prior to this it was part of Whickham Urban District. It lies within the Whickham South & Sunniside electoral ward of the Blaydon parliamentary constituency.
Ellington Colliery, was a coal mine situated to the south of the village of Ellington in Northumberland, England. The colliery was the last deep coal mine in the north east of England. At one time, the deepest part of the mine was 800 metres (2,600 ft) and it extended 15 miles (24 km) under the North Sea. During the 1980s, the pit was known as the biggest undersea mine in the world and produced 69% of the mined coal in Northumberland.
The Forest of Dean Coalfield, underlying the Forest of Dean, in west Gloucestershire, is one of the smaller coalfields in the British Isles, although intensive mining during the 19th and 20th centuries has had enormous influence on the landscape, history, culture, and economy of the area.
Wheldale Colliery was a coal mine located in Castleford, Yorkshire, England which produced coal for 117 years. It was accessed from Wheldon Road.
The coal industry in Wales played an important role in the Industrial Revolution in Wales. Coal mining in Wales expanded in the 18th century to provide fuel for the blast furnaces of the iron and copper industries that were expanding in southern Wales. The industry had reached large proportions by the end of that century, and then further expanded to supply steam-coal for the steam vessels that were beginning to trade around the world. The Cardiff Coal Exchange set the world price for steam-coal and Cardiff became a major coal-exporting port. The South Wales Coalfield was at its peak in 1913 and was one of the largest coalfields in the world. It remained the largest coalfield in Britain until 1925. The supply of coal dwindled, and pits closed in spite of a UK-wide strike against closures. Aberpergwm Colliery is the last deep mine in Wales.
Woodhouse Colliery, also known as Whitehaven coal mine, is a proposed coal mine near to Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. The coal mine has been advertised as bringing jobs to a deprived area, but has also come in for criticism by green campaigners. The mine is proposed by West Cumbria Mining and plans to extract coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea for 25 years. The plan has been criticised by some MPs, scientists and environmentalists due to the coal mine's environmental impact and the UK government's legal commitments to reduce UK carbon emissions.
Bentley Colliery was a coal mine in Bentley, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England, that operated between 1906 and 1993. In common with many other mines, it suffered disasters and accidents. The worst Bentley disaster was in 1931 when 45 miners were killed after a gas explosion. The site of the mine has been converted into a woodland.
Monckton Coke Works was a coking plant near Royston in South Yorkshire, England. The plant opened in 1884 and was closed 130 years later in 2014, being one of the last remnants of the coal industry in Yorkshire. In the 21st century, it was known as being the last independent coke works in the United Kingdom. For many years it was known for its high-quality coking coal, even being exported to coal-rich South Africa for use in steelmaking. However, in 2013/2014, the market was swamped with cheap imports from the Far East, spelling the demise of Monckton due to it being uneconomical.
Ironstone mining in Cleveland and North Yorkshire occurred on a sizeable scale from the 1830s to the 1960s in present-day eastern parts of North Yorkshire but was recorded as far back as Roman times mostly on a small scale and intended for local use. This Cleveland is not to be confused with a smaller area covered by the county of Cleveland from 1974-96.
The Prince of Wales Colliery was a coal mine that operated for over 130 years in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. It was permanently closed in 2002 after geological problems were found to make accessing remaining coal reserves unprofitable, and most of the site was later converted for housing.