MineArchive
Cortonwood and the start of the 1984-85 strike
| Category | Labour |
|---|---|
| Dates | 1 March 1984: closure announced. 5 March 1984: Cortonwood miners walk out. 6 March 1984: official strike; the NCB announces twenty closures. 12 March 1984: national strike declared. 25 October 1985: Cortonwood closes. |
On 1 March 1984 the National Coal Board told the miners of Cortonwood Colliery, at Brampton near Barnsley, that their pit would close within weeks. They walked out on 5 March, and within a week Arthur Scargill had declared a national strike: Cortonwood is where the year-long miners' strike began.
The mining history in this record
Cortonwood, sunk in 1873 by the Brampton Colliery Company, produced coking coal, and by 1984 the price of coking coal had fallen and stocks were high. On Thursday 1 March the Coal Board announced, to the miners' surprise, that the colliery would close at the start of April. That weekend hundreds of men packed into Brampton's parish hall for an emergency meeting called by the NUM.
The Cortonwood men walked out on 5 March and were officially on strike from 6 March, the day the Board announced a programme of twenty closures with the loss of 20,000 jobs. On 12 March Scargill declared that the strikes in the coalfields were to be a national strike. The closure of Cortonwood has been called the final straw that brought it about.
People
Arthur Scargill, NUM president, who declared the national strike.
Legacy today
The strike lasted a year. Cortonwood closed on 25 October 1985, and its site is now a retail and leisure park.
Recorded claims
Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.
- On Thursday 1 March 1984 the National Coal Board told Cortonwood's miners that the colliery would close in April. (contemporary account) 1
- The closure was announced because of the large stocks of coking coal the colliery produced, at a time when the price of coking coal had fallen. (documented fact) 2
- Cortonwood's miners walked out on 5 March 1984 and officially struck on 6 March; on 12 March Arthur Scargill declared the strikes national. (contemporary account) 1
- The proposed closure of Cortonwood was the final straw that brought about the 1984-85 miners' strike. (documented fact) 2
- The colliery officially closed on 25 October 1985, and its site is now a shopping and leisure park. (documented fact) 2
Mines
- Cortonwood Colliery — South Yorkshire
The Coal Board's announcement on 1 March 1984 that Cortonwood would close set off the walk-out from which the national miners' strike grew.
Sources
- (secondary) How the miners' strike began in one close-knit Yorkshire village — Huddersfield Examiner (Yorkshire Live)
- (secondary) Cortonwood — Wikipedia
Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026