Grange Ash Colliery

Overview

A colliery sunk opposite the Kaye Arms between Flockton and Grange Moor in 1871, worked for nearly a century through four seams and closed by the National Coal Board in 1966 with the loss of fifty-eight jobs.

History

Jesse Jaggar sank Grange Ash on open land opposite the Kaye Arms Inn, north of Flockton, on ground leased from the Lister Kaye family, who had already worked the shallow Flockton Thin seam at ten yards and the Old Hards at forty-four. Jaggar leased the mineral rights to the New Hards at ninety-six yards, sank two shafts twelve feet across with pitch pine headstocks and steam winding engines, and began production in 1871. The coal was got by pillar and stall and the voids packed by hand, so that no spoil was wound to the surface at all. Single-deck cages raised two eight-hundredweight tubs at a time on steam from four Lancashire boilers, and the screens stood by the turnpike at the end of a two-hundred-yard tramway. The 1880 List of Mines returns Grange Ash, Wakefield, under Jesse Jaggar. In the 1880s the shafts were deepened to a hundred and fifty yards to reach the Blocking seam, which came into production in 1887, with a steam ventilation fan at No. 2 shaft and an endless rope underground. By 1896 Jaggar had taken Benjamin Elliott, part-owner of Shuttle Eye, into partnership, and the pit employed sixty-five below ground and seven at the surface. The New Hards was worked out by 1916 and the Green Lane seam wound from No. 2 instead; employment reached 104 and 18 in 1919, pithead baths were built in 1935 and the Wheatley Lime seam opened after 1938. In 1945 there were 168 men underground and 25 at the surface.

Geology

The Yorkshire coalfield here carries the Flockton Thin at about ten yards, the Old Hards at forty-four, the New Hards at ninety-six and the Blocking at about a hundred and fifty, with the Green Lane, Wheatley Lime and Beeston seams worked later.

Workings

Two shafts twelve feet in diameter with pitch pine headstocks and steam winders, deepened to 150 yards in the 1880s; pillar and stall working with the voids packed by hand so that no spoil was wound; four Lancashire boilers, single-deck cages taking two eight-hundredweight tubs, a steam fan at No. 2 shaft, an underground endless rope, and screens by the turnpike at the end of a 200-yard tramway.

Closure

The Beeston and Wheatley Lime seams were abandoned in 1964 and the Blocking was nearly exhausted; half the workforce moved to other pits and the colliery closed in 1966 with the loss of fifty-eight jobs. The surface was demolished and the shafts filled and capped in 1967.

What remains

The land was returned to agriculture after 1967 and little evidence of the colliery remains.

Little survives: the surface buildings were demolished and the shafts filled and capped in 1967.

Related mines

• Caphouse Colliery — The neighbouring Denby Grange pit to the north, now the National Coal Mining Museum for England.
• Shuttle Eye Colliery — The neighbouring pit at Grange Moor, part-owned by Benjamin Elliott, who became Jesse Jaggar's partner at Grange Ash.

Recorded claims

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

• Jesse Jaggar sank Grange Ash opposite the Kaye Arms Inn on land leased from the Lister Kaye family, and production from the New Hards seam began in 1871. ¹
• The 1880 List of Mines returns Grange Ash, Wakefield, under Jesse Jaggar. ²
• The coal was worked by pillar and stall with the voids backfilled by hand, so that no spoil was wound to the surface. ¹
• Two twelve-foot shafts with pitch pine headstocks and steam winding engines were deepened to 150 yards in the 1880s to reach the Blocking seam, which came into production in 1887. ¹
• By 1896 Jesse Jaggar had taken Benjamin Elliott, part-owner of Shuttle Eye Colliery, into partnership, and the pit employed sixty-five underground and seven at the surface; by 1945 it had 168 underground and 25 at the surface. ¹
• Grange Ash was nationalised in 1947, when it employed 195 people and produced 70,000 tons of gas and steam coal a year. ¹
• The colliery was connected underground to Emley Moor Colliery in 1959, and closed in 1966 with the loss of fifty-eight jobs; the shafts were filled and capped in 1967. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Grange Ash Colliery — Engole
2. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre

Record created: 23 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026