Spen Valley Magazine Spen Valley Magazine (draft) | Page 8

WORKING BELOW
GROUND LEVEL
Coal Mining
and Quarrying
Coal seams lay beneath the whole of Spen Valley. Almost everywhere coal
has been extracted once upon a time. 
Until the industrial revolution in the mid 18th century
coal was usually taken directly from the surface by
shovel and pick from workings called “day holes” and
“bell pits”. But then demand rocketed to feed the
appetite of the expanding towns and cities and steam
powered machinery.
1854 maps show almost 50 mines and pits (the same
thing). These involve a shaft down which men and
boys were lowered in cages. [The minimum age was
raised to 10 in 1842]. Sometimes a level access could
be gained from a valley side, as from Fusden Wood
under the Cliffe Lane area of Gomersal. Victoria
Colliery was in Cook Lane, Heckmondwike, but most
were among the fields.
Coal mining was grim and dangerous. Take the 1850s.
There were 33 fatalities at pits in Spen Valley including
7 at Soap House Pit (Hartshead). John Briggs age 10
and Henry Garner – listed as a “boy” – were both
crushed beneath coal tubs. Thomas Needham 14 was
also crushed, beneath a fall of coal. Three men fell
down the shaft and a methane explosion claimed the
seventh.
Pits were especially numerous around Liversedge,
Scholes and Hunsworth. Many were owned by either
the Low Moor or the Bowling iron companies. Many
were connected by wagonways where horses pulled
coal wagons along rails. 
The Low Moor rails south of Scholes converged on a
crossing of Whitehall Road opposite Grasmere Road
where the remains of the wagonway banking can still
be seen. Horse power was later replaced by fixed
engines and cables which pulled the loaded wagons
along the track.
Three collieries were connected to the main railway.
Park Pit, south of Heckmondwike, Stanley Pit at
Primrose Lane and the other at Strawberry Bank
Colliery, accessed off Huddersfield Road. Some former
pits have been built on. Roberttown School is the site
of Prospect Pit and Cleckheaton Colliery at Hunsworth
is a small industrial estate. Others such as Birkenshaw
and West End (Cleckheaton) collieries are housing
estates.
Nodules of iron pyrites were encountered whilst mining.
These were collected and supplied to copperas works
in Child Lane, Roberttown (opposite the New Inn) and
at Moorside near the Pack Horse where the recreation
ground is still known as “t’coppras” to older locals.
Nothing to do with copper, the nodules were used to
produce a black dye and sulphuric acid.
Many spoil heaps were removed when the M62 was
built, such as High Moor Lane Colliery by the cricket
field. Others were taken to cover refuse at landfill
sites, for example close by East Bierley. Some were
soiled and grassed using government grants, such as
at Branch Road, Scholes. A rare survivor is the small
spoil heap at Whitaker Pit, Hartshead Moor Top,
where old bell pits can also be seen in the wood.
The main open space at Oakwell Hall Country Park
is the vast landscaped spoil heap of Gomersal Colliery.
Quarrying is even older than coal mining. Local stone
was often suitable for building or slating a roof or for
field walls and was widely exploited such as at Smithies
Lane and Cawley Lane, Heckmondwike. Flags were
produced in Quarry Lane where Hightown View now
stands. Clay pits supplied brickworks; one is shown
at White Lea Road and another at Windybank Lane
where a water filled clay pit survived into the 1980s.
The biggest quarry was however a coal quarry. This
was Coates Pit opencast coal site operated by the
National Coal Board in the 1950s between Birkby
Brow and Old Popplewell, Scholes. 60 years later the
area remains devoid of hedgerows and trees.
Myths and Legends
The story is that miners risked bad luck
if they took the coal from seams beneath
a church. So you would think churches
still have the coal beneath them. Right?
But research by the Civic Society has
found that coal from all three seams
beneath Roberttown, including All Saints
Church, has been taken. The Blocking
Bed coal in the 1870s; the Black Bed coal
in 1910 and the Better Bed coal in 1918.