High Park Colliery

History

High Park stood at Moorgreen, in Greasley parish north-east of Eastwood, and belonged throughout its private life to Barber, Walker and Company, the Eastwood coal firm of the Barber and Walker families. One account puts its sinking in 1860, the first of the run of new pits the firm opened around Eastwood in the 1860s and 1870s, before Moorgreen in 1865, Watnall in 1871 and Brinsley in 1872. A man is recorded as killed falling down the shaft at High Park in December 1854, though, so a pit of that name was at work earlier.

Around the turn of the century it was a sizeable pit: 538 people in 1894, 602 in 1900, 490 in 1915 and 396 in 1923, most of them below ground. It worked the Top Hard seam, with the Coombe seam as well by 1915. Barber, Walker and Co. became a limited company, and in 1947 the colliery passed to the National Coal Board, when it employed 450 and raised 152,000 tons of household and industrial coal.

The record of deaths at High Park runs from 1854 to 1932, mostly men killed by falls of roof and bind in the stalls, with boys of twelve and fourteen among the dead in the 1860s and 1870s. Two colliers were killed by an explosion of gas in November 1864, and a stallman and a dayman by one fall of roof in March 1873. A mineral railway linked High Park with Moorgreen, and the later abandonment plans of the Second Waterloo seam are filed as Moorgreen including High Park.

Geology

The Top Hard seam of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, worked from the 1890s to at least 1915, with the Coombe seam by 1915. The later workings in the Second Waterloo seam were planned with Moorgreen's.

Workings

A shaft colliery worked by stallmen in stalls, with gate-end packs, a main level and an incline; the deaths recorded show falls of roof and bind at the face as the commonest danger.

What remains

No remains survive on the site.

None.

Related mines

• Moorgreen Colliery — Both Barber, Walker and Company pits; a mineral railway joined them and the Second Waterloo abandonment plans are filed as Moorgreen including High Park.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• High Park was sunk in 1860, the first of the firm's new pits around Eastwood. (disputed) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• High Park belonged to Barber, Walker and Co., later Barber, Walker and Co. Ltd, and passed to the National Coal Board in 1947. ^1,2
• High Park was sunk in 1860, the first of the firm's new pits around Eastwood. (disputed) ¹
• A man was killed falling down the shaft at High Park on 4 December 1854. ²
• High Park employed 538 in 1894, 602 in 1900 and 450 in 1947, when it raised 152,000 tons. ²
• The colliery worked the Top Hard seam, and the Coombe seam as well by 1915. ²
• The colliery stood in Greasley parish; no remains survive. ³
• Abandonment plans of the Second Waterloo seam are filed as Moorgreen including High Park. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Eastwood Hall - The Walker Family Dynasty — Mining Heritage
2. (primary) High Park Colliery (Durham Mining Museum) — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Monument record M2375 - High Park Colliery, Greasley (Nottinghamshire Historic Environment Record) — Nottinghamshire County Council
4. (primary) BGS mine plan: MOORGREEN (INC HIGH PARK), Second Waterloo seam — British Geological Survey

Record created: 4 November 2026 · Last researched: 4 November 2026