Mines

Region

Commodity

75 mines beginning with N, of 1950.

Mine	Region	Worked	Commodities
Nab Gill Mine The small, disappointing iron mine that the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway was built to serve; the railway outlived it by more than a century.	Cumbria	By 1842 (ore shipped); c. 1870 as the Whitehaven Iron Mine–July 1918	Iron
Nailstone Colliery It never pumped: the water that ran into its shafts was let collect in the sumps and hauled out overnight in self-filling tanks on the cages — and long after it stopped winding coal, three other collieries brought theirs up here.	Leicestershire	1862–1967 (coal winding); site worked on to 1991	Coal, Fireclay
Nangiles Mine Substantial 19th-century copper mine near Chacewater, reaching 70 fathoms by 1819 and reworked from 1862 with an 80-inch pumping engine on Engine Shaft — and the point of discharge for the 1992 Wheal Jane acid mine water pollution incident.	Cornwall	by 1808–1915 (last substantial working); investigated 1969–1991	Copper, Tin, Zinc, Pyrite
Nant Gwrtheyrn Quarries Too steep for a road, so the setts went out by sea from three jetties — and the quarrymen's village, wrecked by squatters, was bought back for £25,000 and is now a Welsh language centre.	Gwynedd	1851–1939	Granite
Nant Hir Colliery Worked largely single-handed by Albert Thomas for over a decade, using a horse for haulage; novelist Iris Gower went underground here in 1988 while researching her novel Black Gold.	Neath Port Talbot	1979–November 2024	Coal
Nant-y-Garw Lead Mine Most Welsh lead mines grew messily over a century or more, one owner's additions piled on the last — Nant-y-Garw did all its growing and dying inside a single generation, which is exactly why what's left today reads as one coherent design rather than an accumulation of afterthoughts.	Powys	1877 (vein discovered); 1882 (work commenced)–1899	Lead
Nantgarw Colliery The deepest pit yet sunk in the South Wales Coalfield on its 1911 completion, so troubled by geology and labour disputes that it closed within 16 years and sat idle for a decade before becoming the National Coal Board's first major post-nationalisation redevelopment scheme.	Rhondda Cynon Taf	1910 (sinking from 1911)–6 November 1986	Coal
Nantiago Mine A lead and zinc working on the eastern flank of Plynlimon, powered by water diverted from the Nant Iago via a network of leats.	Powys	before 1846–c.1918	Lead, Zinc
Nantmelyn Colliery A colliery that started under one name, failed, and was reopened under a completely different one went on to employ more men under its second identity than most collieries ever manage under their first.	Rhondda Cynon Taf	1856–1957	Coal
Nantwen Colliery Sunk from 1878 to 1883 for the Dowlais Iron Company (later GKN); decades of detailed manpower and output figures survive, peaking at 540 men and 158,360 tons of coal in 1918.	Merthyr Tydfil	1878–83 (sinking)–1924, or soon after (see history)	Coal
Nantyffin Colliery Grew from 23 men in 1927 to nearly 500 by the mid-1940s under Dowlais Collieries Ltd, later merging into Bedlinog Colliery.	Merthyr Tydfil	By 1927, possibly earlier–March 1956 (relicensed mine worked to 1980s)	Coal
Nantymwyn Mine Once the largest lead mine in south Wales, reputedly earning its 18th-century owner £300,000	Carmarthenshire	1747–1932	Lead, Zinc
National Colliery Thirty-three of the dead were under fifteen years old — the 1905 explosion killed a generation of Wattstown boys alongside their fathers.	Rhondda Cynon Taf	Sunk from around 1880–1968	Coal
Naval Colliery The same pit killed 101 men in 1880 and another 12 in 1884 — and kept working for another 74 years after that.	Rhondda Cynon Taf	Pandy pit sunk 1875-79; Ely, Nantgwyn and Anthony pits added 1880-1908–1958	Coal
Navigation Colliery Rated by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales as the best-preserved colliery complex in South Wales, with thirteen listed buildings surviving intact.	Caerphilly	1907 (sunk); coaling from 1911–1967	Coal
Nent Force Level A four-mile drainage level designed by John Smeaton that never found new ore but became a Victorian tourist attraction, with underground boat trips through the Pennines' largest man-made passages.	Cumbria	1776 (construction begun by John Smeaton)–Substantially complete c.1810, with further work into the 1840s	Lead
Nenthead Mines Core of the North Pennines orefield; one of England's highest villages	Cumbria	1737–1961	Lead, Silver, Zinc
Nentsberry Haggs Mine An Alston Moor lead, zinc and witherite mine that kept receiving ore from new workings as late as the Second World War, long after most district mines had closed.	Cumbria	Worked through the 19th century; active into the 1940s–Working into the Second World War as a tailings/flotation operation	Lead, Zinc, Witherite
Nentsbury Mine The largest workforce in the 1930 Cumberland return — 108 men underground for a Belgian zinc company.	Cumbria	No reliable opening date has yet been located.–Still returning 108 men underground in 1930	Lead, Zinc
Neston Colliery An obscure Wirral peninsula coalfield where one pit owner deliberately flooded his neighbour's workings and blew up his tunnels in a bitter early rivalry.	Cheshire	First colliery opened 1759/60; second phase from 1875–First era ended 1855; final closure 1927/28	Coal
Nether Loads Farm Red Lead Mill It holds the only known red lead mill building left standing above ground anywhere in England.	Derbyshire	Smelt mill first recorded in 1581–Converted to a corn mill by the mid-19th century	Lead
Nether Ratchwood and Rantor Lead Mines Discovery of the rich ground beneath the two mines was delayed for years by a dispute over payments to the very sough company whose drainage work eventually made working them possible.	Derbyshire	Sunk in the 1740s–Active until the 1860s	Lead
Netherseal Colliery Sunk in Leicestershire in 1867 and finished up in Derbyshire without moving; the first pit in South Derbyshire with compressed-air haulage underground.	Derbyshire	1867–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Coal
Netherton Colliery Four pits sunk over a century, a waggonway of its own to Blyth, and a village that grew up around it.	Northumberland	By 1828–5 January 1974	Coal
Nettleton Top Mine Possibly the first ironstone mine in the country to run diesel locomotives underground — and it still had horses at the face on its last day.	Lincolnshire	1934–1968	Ironstone
Neumann's Mine Northwich has spent more money making Neumann's Mine safe long after it closed than the mine itself was probably ever worth -- 780,500 cubic metres of infill, at depths of 90 metres, to undo what one collapsed roof did in a single event over a century earlier.	Cheshire	to 19th century	Salt
New Boston Colliery Richard Evans' Ram Pit at Haydock, sunk about 1854, where a Sunday repair job on a falling brow in 1905 buried the under-manager, his brother and three datallers.	Merseyside	c. 1854 (museum: 1880)–1907 or 1910; pumping only in 1910	Coal
New Consols Mine Few mines changed their name as often as this one — Wheal Martha, Great Wheal Martha, New Wheal Martha, New Great Consols and finally New Consols — a small clue to just how many times the site was reorganised, refinanced and rebranded across more than a century of working.	Cornwall	worked as Wheal Martha from the 19th century–1953	Tin, Copper, Arsenic, Lead, Silver
New Fancy Colliery A Forest of Dean colliery, opened 1827, an early adopter of compressed-air coal cutters.	Gloucestershire	gale held from early 1800s; own shafts sunk c. 1852-57–August 1944	Coal
New Glencrieff Mine New Glencrieff has the distinction of being both one of the richest lead mines Britain ever had — an estimated 105,000 tonnes of lead smelted from its ore over two and a half centuries — and the very last mine standing in a village, Wanlockhead, that had lived and died by lead mining since the 17th century.	Dumfries and Galloway	1718–1958 (main working); reprocessing to early 1960s	Lead, Zinc
New Haden Colliery The Cheadle coalfield's Klondyke, closed in 1943 to send its 500 men to better pits	Staffordshire	By 1901–1943	Coal
New Hawne Colliery The last working colliery in the Black Country, undone by a thirty-foot seam that would not stay up and water that would not stay out.	West Midlands	1864–1920s	Coal
New Lester Colliery Had no railway of its own for nine years, moving coal out by horse and cart until a mineral line finally reached it in 1874.	Greater Manchester	c. 1865–1938	Coal
New London Colliery The Digby Colliery Company's main Erewash valley pit at Newthorpe, 1874-1937, whose spoil bank the village still calls Shonky Bank.	Nottinghamshire	c. 1874–1937	Coal
New Providence Lead Mine Founded by workers striking out from the older Providence Mine, on the opposite side of the same Wharfedale valley.	North Yorkshire	1820 (trial working); 1858 (main working)–1880	Lead
New Rake Lead Mines Speedwell Cavern's famous underground boat trip passes directly beneath New Rake, whose own miners raced to work out the ground in the 1750s before rivals could claim it via the same route.	Derbyshire	Documented from 1711–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Lead
New Rock Colliery A four-and-a-half-foot shaft that wound coal for 149 years: too narrow to modernise, so the Coal Board reopened the pit next door and joined the two together instead.	Somerset	1819–September 1968	Coal
New Stamphill Mine, Kirkby Thore Opened in 1937 as the Kirkby Thore gypsum field's older Stamphill mine was worked out; grew from 3 workers to 59 by 1950.	Cumbria	1937–After 1950, not established	Gypsum
New Stubbin Colliery A twentieth-century Fitzwilliam pit whose first sod was cut by the Earl's son, and which outlived its own production as an underground store.	South Yorkshire	Sinking begun 1913–6 July 1978	Coal
New Tredegar Colliery The manager ordered the pit kept clear for twenty-four hours. The men went down the next morning anyway, and twenty-two died.	Caerphilly	1853–1929	Coal
New Venture Lead Mine Its remains were thorough enough, and undisturbed enough by later reworking, to be catalogued feature-by-feature in a full academic earthwork survey in 2013 -- a level of documentation most minor Peak District rakes never receive.	Derbyshire	18th century–19th century	Lead
New Wernddu Colliery A drift that grew from 36 men in 1905 to several hundred by the early 1920s, and whose sources cannot agree whether it closed in 1922 or 1929.	Neath Port Talbot	By 1905–October 1922 or January 1929 (sources differ)	Coal
Newbattle Collieries The Marquis of Lothian’s colliery undertaking on the Newbattle estate — pits, brickworks, lime works and its own waggonway — out of which the Lothian Coal Company and Lady Victoria grew.	Midlothian	By 1798–1890 (as the Marquis of Lothian’s undertaking)	Coal, Fireclay
Newbridge Ironstone Quarry A sample of local ironstone was thought good enough to be shown off at the Great Exhibition in 1851, in the same hall as the Koh-i-Noor diamond -- fifteen years before this quarry itself even opened.	Northamptonshire	1867–1880s	Iron
Newcastle Colliery, Basford Thomas North's 1853 pit at Whitemoor, named for the duke whose coal it was, worked on the Top Hard by the Babbington company until 1925.	Nottinghamshire	1853–1925	Coal
Newcraighall Colliery The nickname stuck harder than the industry did: 'the Klondyke' was still what people called the site decades after the pit itself, and the gold rush that inspired the name, had passed into history.	Midlothian	1897 ('the Klondyke')–1968	Coal, Cannel Coal
Newdigate Colliery Nearly ruined by underground fires within three years of its first coal, and the last working colliery in Warwickshire when it stopped in 1982.	Warwickshire	1901–February 1982	Coal
Newry Granite Quarries A pillar cut here, up to 21 feet long, still stands in Manchester Town Hall — a piece of County Down granite doing civic duty two hundred miles from home	County Down	Moor Quarry worked from the 1840s; peak activity around 1900–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Granite
Newstead Colliery At 84 years old it started topping the national productivity tables, and went on breaking its own million-ton record for seventeen years.	Nottinghamshire	1874–19 March 1987	Coal
Nibley Colliery The northernmost of seven pits once served by the district's mineral railway network, connected via its own dedicated line from Coalpit Heath station.	Gloucestershire	Producing coal prior to 1832 as one of three pits–By 1949	Coal
Nickergrove Mine A 1990s dig beyond a collapsed section found the mine's own natural passages connect through to the stream cave between Streaks Pot and Merlin's Mine -- an underground link between two separately-known sites.	Derbyshire	Likely first worked as early as the 1750s–Worked until around 1900.	Lead
Niddrie Colliery The pits that built the Jewel — a company village of 168 houses on Edinburgh’s eastern edge, put up by the Niddrie and Benhar Coal Company and gone by the 1980s, its name now carried by a dual carriageway.	Midlothian	By 1874–By 1968	Coal
Nine Mile Point Colliery A Cwmfelinfach colliery notable for an early 1935 pit 'stay-down' protest.	Caerphilly	1902 (sinking); coal from 1905–25 July 1964	Coal
Nixon's Navigation Colliery Nixon made his money teaching the French to burn Welsh steam coal, then spent seven years and £113,772 sinking this pit — and very nearly ruined himself doing it.	Rhondda Cynon Taf	1860–1940	Coal
Nook Colliery Grew from one shaft to five, and from a fairly ordinary 1866 sinking into the second-largest colliery anywhere on the Manchester Coalfield.	Greater Manchester	1866–1965	Coal
Norchard Colliery Bought by its own neighbour specifically to stop its floodwater — and outlived every other Forest of Dean deep mine by becoming a heritage railway's home instead of a housing estate.	Forest of Dean	1930 (acquired); new drift from 1937–1965	Coal
Norman's Quarry The last quarryman's widow reopened the workings in 1995, half a century after they stopped.	Dorset	Early 20th century–Second World War; reopened 1995	Limestone
North Blaina Colliery The Rising Sun, then the New Sun, then Stone's Pit, then North Blaina: four names for one colliery in sixty years.	Blaenau Gwent	Probably about 1860 as the Rising Sun Pit; returned from 1890–About 1923	Coal
North Downs Mine A Scorrier-area copper and tin mine linked into the Great County Adit drainage system.	Cornwall	worked by the mid-18th century–production tailed off after 1918	Copper, Tin
North Gawber Colliery Sunk in the early 1850s and remade twice — round a new shaft in 1948 and round a surface drift after that — before it was merged into Woolley and closed.	South Yorkshire	1854 (sinking from 1850)–December 1985	Coal
North Laxey Mine Lead, zinc and silver at the head of the Cornaa valley, and a processing floor that survives unusually complete.	Isle of Man	1856–1897	Lead, Silver, Zinc
North Skelton Mine The deepest ironstone mine in Cleveland was also its last survivor -- when North Skelton wound its final tubs in January 1964, it brought down the curtain on the whole East Cleveland iron industry.	North Yorkshire	Ironstone discovered 1865–17 January 1964	Iron
North Staveley Colliery A small pit whose new owners built houses, a chapel and a reading room, and put seventy per cent on the parish in ten years.	South Yorkshire	Sunk in the 1840s as Aston Colliery–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Coal
North Steelend Colliery Probably the smallest coalmine in Scotland when a pneumoconiosis-invalided miner opened it with a licence in 1957, and the set for a Dr Finlay's Casebook rescue scene.	Fife	By 1880; reopened 1957–1896 (colliery); 1965 (private mine)	Coal
North Tunnel Colliery Worked the Big Vein under manager T. Phillips in 1878, very likely the same pit recorded elsewhere simply as "Tunnel" working into the 1910s.	Merthyr Tydfil	By 1878–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Coal
Northern Dale Lead Mines Lords and Ladies Mine works a narrow, flat vein running through reef limestone -- a unique occurrence anywhere in the Derbyshire orefield.	Derbyshire	Mines here documented active by the 1530s–No reliable closure date has yet been located.	Lead
Northern United Colliery The last deep coal mine in the Forest of Dean closed on Christmas Day, 1965 — seven hundred men and boys out of work in time for the holiday.	Gloucestershire	Preparatory work from July 1932; coal struck 8 February 1934–25 December 1965	Coal
Norton Hill Colliery The colliery's owners never fully accepted the official explanation for the disaster that killed ten of their own men — they blamed gas, while the inspector's own report blamed coal dust.	Somerset	Sunk 1903 (earlier Norton Hill Old Pit worked from at least 1839)–1966	Coal
Norwich Chalk Mines A grid of medieval and later tunnels under the city, and in 1988 a double-decker bus fell twenty-six feet into one of them on Earlham Road.	Norfolk	11th century–19th century	Chalk, Flint
Nostell Colliery Coal was dug here in the ninth century and the priory was licensed to mine it in the twelfth; the Winns were still at it when the pit closed in 1987.	West Yorkshire	1860 (modern colliery); coal worked here from the 9th century–1987	Coal
Noyadd Colliery Opened in 1901 and employing well over a hundred men by 1908, it was abandoned after barely eight years of work.	Carmarthenshire	1901–December 1909	Coal
Nunckley Quarry A granite quarry opened because a railway was routed past it, and worked mainly to ballast that railway	Leicestershire	1896–1922	Granite
Nunnery Colliery The pit that lit Sheffield's fires, and where a haulage rope snapped in 1923 and sent a train of 120 men and boys down an incline.	South Yorkshire	1868–August 1953	Coal
Nutfield and Redhill Fuller's Earth Mines A clay dug for washing wool ended up, four centuries later, refining edible oil and drilling mud.	Surrey	Worked since at least 1583; industrialised from the 1860s-70s–1996 (Copyhold Works)	Fuller's Earth
Nyth-y-Gigfran Quarry Its distinctive green 'Olive Vein' slate and its own 50-year hiatus both ended the same way -- swallowed into Oakeley, which drove a connecting tunnel to it in 1924 and thereby became, for a time, the largest underground slate mine in the world.	Gwynedd	Worked from around 1840–1870	Slate