Babbington Colliery

Overview

The first large-scale deep coal mine in Nottinghamshire, sunk at Cinderhill from 1841 by the Babbington Coal Company and worked continuously for 145 years until 1986 — by which point it had become one of the National Coal Board's most loss-making Nottinghamshire pits.

History

Babbington Colliery was sunk at Cinderhill, four miles north-west of Nottingham, from 1841-42, taking its name from the Babbington Coal Company, founded in 1839 to work older, shallower mines near the hamlet of Babbington itself, some two and a half miles to the west. The engineer Thomas North sank two seven-foot-diameter shafts, eventually reaching a depth of 553 yards, marking Nottinghamshire's shift from small-scale shallow workings to industrial-scale deep mining — Babbington is described as the first large-scale coal mine in the county. Ownership passed from the Babbington Coal Company through Babbington Coal Co. Ltd and B. A. Collieries Ltd before nationalisation in 1947. The colliery worked the Deep Hard and Deep Soft seams, and by 1982 was the oldest continuously operating colliery in the area. Its later years were difficult: in the 1981-82 financial year it recorded losses of £20.6 million, more than the rest of the Nottinghamshire coalfield's collieries combined, and in 1981 the National Coal Board proposed merging it with the neighbouring Hucknall Colliery. Babbington finally closed in September 1986 as part of the combined Hucknall-Babbington complex. In September 1901 two men were killed by successive falls of roof in a stall (see Disasters, below).

Geology

Coal of the Nottinghamshire field: the Deep Hard and Deep Soft seams, reached by two shafts 553 yards deep.

Workings

Two shafts, sunk to a depth of 553 yards, working the Deep Hard and Deep Soft seams; employment ranged from under 500 in the mine's leaner years to a peak of around 1,350 following a £1.5 million reorganisation in the 1960s.

Closure

Closed in September 1986 as part of the combined Hucknall-Babbington complex, following years of heavy financial losses that by 1981-82 exceeded those of the rest of the Nottinghamshire coalfield's pits put together.

What remains

The site is now occupied by the Phoenix Park business park and the Phoenix Park tram terminus of Nottingham's NET tram network, whose Hucknall line follows the route of the former Cinderhill Colliery Railway.

Related mines

• Bulwell Colliery — Both were worked by the Babbington Coal Company.
• Newcastle Colliery, Basford — Both Thomas North's pits; Newcastle was returned within Cinderhill (Babbington) by 1923.
• Tibshelf Colliery — Both worked by Charles Seely’s Babbington Coal Company, whose Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire brigades travelled together to Windsor Castle in 1893.

Disasters & major incidents

• Cinder Hill Colliery arching fall, 1858
  6 August 1858 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  Two masons at Thomas North's Cinder Hill Colliery, Nottingham, were killed on 6 August 1858 when they took the centering from under newly built arching without authority and it fell on them.
• Babbington Colliery roof fall, 1901
  11 September 1901 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  Two men died in successive falls of roof in a stall at Babbington Colliery, Cinderhill, Nottingham, on 11 September 1901: the loader Tom Hickman Langham, and the stallman Isaac Hickman, who went to help him.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Babbington Colliery was sunk at Cinderhill from 1841-42 by the engineer Thomas North, who sank two seven-foot-diameter shafts eventually reaching 553 yards deep — the first large-scale deep coal mine in Nottinghamshire. ^1,2
• The colliery worked the Deep Hard and Deep Soft seams; recorded employment ranged from under 500 in the early 1900s and 1930s to a peak of around 1,350 following a £1.5 million reorganisation. ²
• The colliery recorded losses of £20.6 million in 1981-82, more than the rest of the Nottinghamshire coalfield combined, and closed in September 1986 as part of the merged Hucknall-Babbington complex. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Babbington Colliery — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum — Babbington Colliery (UK) — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 2 September 2026 · Last researched: 2 September 2026