Duke Wood Colliery

Overview

Duke Wood Colliery was one of two pits the Norton Brothers opened at Clayton West around 1862-63, and it belongs to a pattern common in the Huddersfield district: fancy woollen manufacturers sinking their own collieries to fuel their own mills. Joseph Norton used the coal to power the family's textile mills at Cuttlehurst and Scissett. The wood itself had been dug long before, and bell pits are still visible among the trees. Duke Wood is the only one of these workings with a continuing function: its shaft still serves as the emergency exit and air vent for Flacks, the last mine working in the village.

History

Coal and textiles were closely tied in the Huddersfield district, where the number and size of steam engines in the scribbling mills grew steadily from the 1790s and several mill owners answered the fuel bill by sinking their own pits. The Norton Brothers, extensive fancy woollen manufacturers, were involved in mining at Clayton West at least before 1856 and opened collieries at Clayton Common and Duke Wood in about 1862 or 1863. Joseph Norton owned a number of mines in the 1870s and used them to produce coal for the family's mills at Cuttlehurst and in Scissett. The colliery was still at work twenty years later: the Midland and Northern Coal and Iron Trades Gazette's directory of collieries at work in Yorkshire, published on 9 May 1883, lists Norton Brothers and Co. at both Clayton Common colliery and Duke Wood colliery. Mining in the woods long predates the Norton pits. Bell pits — a shaft sunk a few metres and worked outwards from the bottom until the ground threatened to fall in — are clearly visible in the woodland around Duke Wood, below Cliffe Woods, and in the adjacent village of Emley there is evidence of seven hundred years of working, monks of Byland Abbey having mined and smelted ironstone there from the thirteenth century.

Geology

Clayton West sits on the Yorkshire Coal Measures at the head of the Dearne valley, where the seams lie shallow enough to have been reached by bell pits from the surface long before the Norton Brothers sank their collieries; eleven coal mines were at work in the Dearne valley by 1865.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

A shaft colliery of the 1860s, worked alongside the Nortons' other pit at Clayton Common. The ground around it carries the remains of far older bell pits, each a shaft of a few metres worked outwards at the bottom, visible as hollows in the woodland.

Closure

No date has been found for the end of coal winding at Duke Wood. The colliery was still listed as at work in 1883, and the shaft has never been abandoned outright: it serves as the emergency exit and air vent for the privately owned Flacks mine, the only mine still working at Clayton West.

What remains

The woodland around Duke Wood, down the hill from Cliffe Woods, still shows clear evidence of bell pits. The Duke Wood shaft itself remains in use as an emergency exit and air vent for Flacks mine, the only mine still operating in Clayton West.

Nearby mines

• Huskar Pit — 3.9 km SE, South Yorkshire
• Flockton Collieries — 4.3 km N
• Woolley Colliery — 5.5 km E, South Yorkshire
• Caphouse Colliery — 5.8 km N
• Shuttle Eye Colliery — 5.8 km NW

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

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

• The Norton Brothers, extensive fancy woollen manufacturers involved in mining at Clayton West at least before 1856, opened collieries at Clayton Common and Duke Wood in about 1862 or 1863. ¹
• Joseph Norton owned a number of mines around the 1870s and used them to produce coal to power the family's textile mills at Cuttlehurst and in Scissett; one of them was the mine in Duke Wood. ²
• The Midland and Northern Coal and Iron Trades Gazette's directory of collieries at work in Yorkshire, 9 May 1883, lists Norton Brothers and Co. at Duke Wood colliery and at Clayton Common colliery. ³
• Evidence of bell pits is clearly visible in the woodland around Duke Wood, down the hill from Cliffe Woods. ²
• The Duke Wood shaft still acts as an emergency exit and air vent for the privately owned Flacks mine, the only mine still operating in Clayton West. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Coal mining in the Huddersfield area — Underground Histories (read via a 2024 Wayback Machine capture)
2. (secondary) Clayton West — Wikipedia
3. (primary) Directory of collieries at work: Yorkshire, 9 May 1883 — Midland & Northern Coal & Iron Trades Gazette, transcribed by Huddersfield Exposed (read via a 2023 Wayback Machine capture)

Record created: 6 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026