Kirkby Colliery

Overview

A Butterley Company pit at Kirkby in Ashfield that grew from 534 people in 1894 to nearly three thousand in 1923. The National Coal Board closed it in 1968 with two thousand men still on the books and four million pounds spent on it in six years, and the closure was argued out in the Commons at ten to nine in the morning.

History

Kirkby was the Butterley Company's colliery at Kirkby in Ashfield, its sinking dated by the Durham Mining Museum to the period 1890 to 1915. It grew steadily and then sharply: 534 employed in 1894, 788 in 1900, 1,112 in 1905, 1,925 in 1910, 2,080 in 1915 and 2,961 in 1923, working for manufacturing and steam coal. The interwar years cut it back to 1,575 by 1937, and it was up again to 2,140 in 1940. It passed to the National Coal Board in 1947 and raised 430,000 tons of coking, gas, household and steam coal that year. Its end was contested. The National Coal Board announced in February 1968 that the pit was in jeopardy and on 22 April that it would close at the end of August. About four million pounds had been invested in it in the previous six years and it employed around two thousand men. There was a widespread demand for a public inquiry, not only from the Kirkby branch of the National Union of Mineworkers but from the area executive, and David Marquand, the member for Ashfield, raised it in the Commons on the adjournment at ten to nine on the morning of 26 June 1968. What he chose to talk about was not the pit but what came after it. He pressed for labour-intensive industry to be brought to that part of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, and for the Redundancy Payments Act to be re-examined as it applied to miners. The younger men at Kirkby would be offered work at other collieries, he said, but many did not want jobs an hour's travel from home in what they felt was a dying industry, and with no guarantee that a profitable pit would still be profitable in ten years. What they wanted was a chance to leave the industry while they were still young enough to learn something else.

Geology

The colliery worked the Coal Measures of the Nottinghamshire coalfield at Kirkby in Ashfield. Neither source read names the seams, which is a real gap for a pit of this size.

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

Workings

A Butterley Company shaft colliery; the Durham Mining Museum gives its sinking as 1890 to 1915, which spans more than one shaft. Nothing further about the layout is recorded in the sources read.

Closure

The National Coal Board announced in February 1968 that the colliery was in jeopardy and on 22 April that it would close at the end of August; about two thousand men were employed at the end of March. A public inquiry was demanded and not, on the evidence read, granted.

What remains

No account of the site as it is now was found in the sources read.

No account of surviving remains was found in the sources read.

Redevelopment

Not established.

Nearby mines

• Silverhill Colliery — 3.8 km NW
• Annesley Colliery — 4.1 km S
• Teversal Colliery — 5.6 km NW
• Newstead Colliery — 5.7 km SE
• Sherwood Colliery — 6.3 km NE

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 colliery was held by the Butterley Company and passed to the National Coal Board in 1947, producing 430,000 tons of coking, gas, household and steam coal that year; the Durham Mining Museum dates its sinking to the period 1890 to 1915. ¹
• The Lists of Mines give 534 employed in 1894, 579 in 1896, 788 in 1900, 1,112 in 1905, 1,925 in 1910, 2,080 in 1915, 2,961 in 1923, 2,037 in 1933, 1,575 in 1937 and 2,140 in 1940. ¹
• The National Coal Board announced in February 1968 that Kirkby Colliery was in jeopardy and on 22 April that it would close at the end of August; the colliery employed about 1,950 men at the end of March. About four million pounds had been invested in it in the previous six years, and there was a widespread demand for a public inquiry from the Kirkby branch of the National Union of Mineworkers and from the area executive. ²
• David Marquand, the member for Ashfield, told the Commons on 26 June 1968 that he wanted to concentrate not on the closure itself but on its implications: the urgent need to attract labour-intensive industry to that part of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, and the need to re-examine the working of the Redundancy Payments Act as it affected mineworkers. Many younger miners, he said, did not want alternative jobs at collieries up to an hour's journey away in what they felt was a dying industry, and wanted the chance to leave while they were still young enough to acquire new skills. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Kirkby Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Kirkby Colliery (Closure), HC Deb 26 June 1968 vol 767 cc771-82 — Hansard

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026