Hartington Colliery

Overview

The Staveley company's pit at Staveley, sunk in the 1850s as the New Hollingwood Deep Winning and renamed Hartington in October 1879 when a great differential pumping engine built in the company's own works was erected there. It stopped drawing coal in 1927, but its real career was longer than its mining one: it went on ventilating and pumping for Ireland Colliery, and after Ireland closed it kept pumping to hold the water back from Markham and Bolsover.

History

The colliery began as New Hollingwood, a single shaft with an underground furnace for ventilation, coupled below ground to the older Staveley pits; one account dates it to 1855 and the Northern Mine Research Society's history of the company's workings to 1858, when the New Hollingwood Deep Winning was sunk twelve feet across and 218 yards to the Deep Soft, divided down the middle by a wooden brattice so that one half was downcast and the other upcast, with single-deck cages of two tubs running each side of the partition and very little room left for the air to pass. A further shaft with a thirty-foot Guibal fan, one of the largest then erected, followed in 1869. The pit's importance to the company was as the ventilating and pumping station for the group. In 1877 the Staveley Coal and Iron Company arranged to sink another shaft at New Hollingwood specifically to improve ventilation and pumping for both this colliery and the new Ireland Colliery to its south, the cost met from the reserve fund; the sinking was finished in 1878 and the heavy machinery installed through the following year. A high-pressure cylinder of forty-five inches and a low-pressure of seventy-two by a ten-foot stroke, built in the company's own works, was erected during October 1879, and it was at that point that the colliery was named Hartington. Hathorn, Davey of Leeds supplied and fitted their patent differential valve gear, the 'Steam Man', in which a secondary steam piston worked a train of levers regulated to hold the engine to a set speed. A forty-foot Guibal fan went up against the south wall of the pump house early in 1879 and drew 144,000 cubic feet of air a minute at a water gauge of just over two inches, air being pulled down the Hartington and Ireland shafts, round the airways and out at the Hartington upcast; a duplicate fan stood by so that either could take over. A staple shaft sunk from the pit bottom proved the Blackshale in 1879 and both shafts were then deepened to it. After the Coal Mines Act of 1911 required reversible ventilation, a twelve-foot Waddle fan of 170,000 cubic feet a minute was installed with a system of doors to reverse the air, driven by a two-cylinder horizontal Ruston engine. In 1896 Hartington No. 1 employed 293 men below ground and 39 above, and No. 2 employed 306 and 44. A scheme begun in 1921 would have sunk the Hartington shafts to the Blackshale, with a 440-horsepower electric winder by Markham and Company and a fifty-five-foot lattice steel headgear over the upcast, whose mouth was covered by large doors opened by small pilot lids that a bracket on the cage chains lifted as a valve to soften the shock. The unrest of the coal industry and the General Strike stopped it. Hartington closed in 1927, its downcast capped and its head frame and winding engine demolished, and Ireland drew the Hartington coal from then on. The pumping and ventilation went on regardless, and after Ireland closed in the 1980s Hartington was kept solely to pump water out of the old workings and protect Markham and Bolsover from flooding, the firm of Cementation lining the old upcast shaft at the bottom to take a large submersible pump.

Geology

Sunk to the Deep Soft, or Hollingwood bed, at 218 yards, with the Blackshale below it, proved by a staple shaft from the pit bottom in 1879 and reached from the surface at 390 feet. The pit's later career turned on water rather than coal: it stands at a point in the Staveley workings from which the district's drainage could be controlled, which is why it outlasted its own coal by sixty years.

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

Workings

A single bratticed shaft at first, half downcast and half upcast with an underground furnace, then a second shaft of 1878 built for ventilation and pumping. The 1879 differential pumping engine, made in the Staveley works with Hathorn Davey's 'Steam Man' valve gear, gave the colliery its name. Ventilation ran through a 40-foot Guibal fan of 1879 with a duplicate standby, and later a reversible 12-foot Waddle fan required by the 1911 Act. A staple shaft from the pit bottom proved the Blackshale in 1879. The unbuilt 1921 scheme would have added a 440-horsepower Markham electric winder and a 55-foot lattice steel headgear.

Closure

Coal drawing ceased in 1927, when the downcast was capped and the head frame and winding engine demolished, and Ireland Colliery drew the Hartington coal thereafter. The site itself was not finished: it went on ventilating and pumping for Ireland and, after Ireland closed, pumped alone to keep water off Markham and Bolsover, work still going on when the Northern Mine Research Society described it in 1985.

What remains

An industrial estate. The Historic Environment Record noted in 2000 that one or two nondescript single-storey concrete buildings on the site were formerly ancillary colliery buildings, and modern mapping shows Hartington House at the north-east corner, the only remaining building that may be associated with the colliery and one that appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey. The 1879 differential pump house survived largely complete into the 1980s as an electrical store with an Airex fan in place of its steam engine; one Guibal fan house was partly demolished in the 1970s and the other bricked up, its wooden-paddled fan said to be still inside.

Hartington House and one or two concrete ancillary buildings; the 1879 pump house and a bricked-up Guibal fan house survived into the 1980s.

Redevelopment

Industrial estate, with the shafts long used as a mine-water pumping station.

Related mines

• Ireland Colliery — Built to work as one system: the second Hartington shaft was sunk in 1877-78 expressly to ventilate and pump for both pits, a Guibal fan drew air down both shafts, and after Hartington stopped drawing coal in 1927 Ireland raised the Hartington coal while Hartington pumped and ventilated for it.

Nearby mines

• Ireland Colliery — 1.4 km S
• Markham Colliery — 3.3 km S
• Eckington Mine — 4.3 km N
• Arkwright Colliery — 5.2 km S
• Bolsover Colliery — 5.8 km SE

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 first edition 25-inch Ordnance Survey of about 1880 shows New Hollingwood Colliery with adjacent planned housing; on the second and third editions it has become Hartington Colliery. ¹
• The colliery was named Hartington in October 1879, when a pumping engine with a 45-inch high-pressure cylinder and a 72-inch low-pressure cylinder of ten-foot stroke, made in the Staveley company's own works, was erected at the new sinking; Hathorn, Davey of Leeds fitted their patent differential valve gear, the 'Steam Man'. ²
• The New Hollingwood Deep Winning was sunk in 1858, a single 12-foot shaft 218 yards to the Deep Soft divided by a wooden brattice into downcast and upcast halves with an underground ventilating furnace. (disputed) ³
• A list of the Staveley collieries dates New Hollingwood, or Hartington Silkstone, to 1855, and notes that housing was built on the site and later demolished. (disputed) ⁴
• A 40-foot Guibal fan was at work against the pump house wall early in 1879, delivering 144,000 cubic feet of air a minute at a water gauge of 2.05 inches; air was drawn down the Hartington and Ireland shafts and exhausted at the Hartington upcast, and a duplicate fan stood by. ³
• In 1896 Hartington No. 1 employed 293 men underground and 39 on the surface, and Hartington No. 2 employed 306 and 44. ²
• Hartington Colliery was closed during 1927, its downcast shaft capped and the head frame and winding engine demolished, while Ireland Colliery continued to draw the Hartington coal; the pumping and ventilation duties carried on from that date. ^2,3
• The site is now an industrial estate; one or two nondescript single-storey concrete buildings were formerly ancillary colliery buildings, and Hartington House at the north-east corner, shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey, is the only remaining building possibly associated with the colliery. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Derbyshire HER monument MDR11078: Hartington (formerly New Hollingwood) Colliery, site of, Staveley — Derbyshire Historic Environment Record
2. (secondary) Hartington and Ireland Collieries (oldminer.co.uk, quoting Staveley Coal and Iron Company annual reports 1875-78) — oldminer.co.uk (Andrew Bridgewater)
3. (secondary) Notes on 19th century coal mining at Staveley, Derbyshire (British Mining No. 28, NMRS Memoirs 1985) — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (secondary) Staveley collieries (oldminer.co.uk) — oldminer.co.uk (Andrew Bridgewater)

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