Mines

125 mines beginning with S, of 1950.

MineRegionWorkedCommodities
Sacriston Colliery
A man was found alive on top of his coal tub after 92 hours in the dark, surrounded by the flood water that had killed two of his workmates.
County Durham 1839–1985 Coal, Fireclay
Saddlebole Mine
A previously unknown shaft here was found only in recent years by the author Alan Garner, whose own rediscovery of a Bronze Age shovel elsewhere on the Edge in 1993 helped transform understanding of the site's ancient mining history.
Cheshire Documented from 1693–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Copper, Cobalt
Saint Vincent's Colliery
A Forest of Dean gale whose coal was no good, kept alive by the brick clay lying underneath it.
Forest of Dean Licensed 1844–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Coal, Brick Clay
Sallet Hole Mine
Mixed lead/barytes/fluorspar mine near Stoney Middleton, worked from at least the 17th century, underground fluorspar production continued to 1998.
Derbyshire at least 17th century (as a sough)–1998 Lead, Fluorspar
Sallies Mine
A Shropshire barytes mine worked by Malehurst Barytes until 1947, whose shaft now supplies the Gatten estate's water.
Shropshire No reliable opening date has yet been located.–1947 Barite
Saltom Colliery
An engineer who lit the way underground with sparks rather than flame, at a mine that tried to pipe its own gas to light Whitehaven's streets.
Cumbria 1729–1848 (pumping continued to 1866) Coal
Sandbed Mine
A rare case where a single lode's exhaustion at one mine -- Driggith -- directly shifted a succession of companies' attention next door to Sandbed, rather than ending the district's mining outright.
Cumbria 18th century–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead, Copper, Zinc
Sandhole Colliery
Its winding engines shared one ornamental engine house between two shafts — and the colliery itself absorbed its exhausted neighbour's last reserves rather than let them go to waste.
Greater Manchester 1865–1962 Coal
Sandlodge Mine
Shetland's most productive metal mine; worked on and off for well over a century against constant flooding
Shetland Islands c. 1790–1929 Copper, Iron
Sandwell Park Colliery
The most notable Black Country venture of its day: the first colliery to work the concealed coalfield east of the boundary fault, and the model for Hamstead.
West Midlands 1870–1960 Coal
Sanquhar Coalfield
One of Scotland's oldest recorded coalfields, once the largest privately owned coal concern in the country, peaking at over 2,000 miners in the 1920s.
Dumfries and Galloway Developed from the late 18th century–Fauldhead pit closed 1968; Crawick opencast closed 1980 Coal
Scotgate Ash Quarry
Stand on the platform at York, Paddington or Victoria and the edge under your feet may have come off this hillside.
North Yorkshire By 1351–1915 Sandstone
Scrabo Quarries
The sandstone that built much of Victorian Belfast, preserved for quarrying by the sheet of molten dolerite that capped it sixty million years ago.
County Down Anglo-Norman period–20th century Sandstone
Seafield Colliery
Closed in 1988 with an estimated 200 million tonnes of good-quality coal still in the ground beneath the Forth — a reserve abandoned on economic grounds rather than exhaustion.
Fife Sinking began 12 May 1954; production from 1965-66–January 1988 Coal
Seaham Colliery
A message scratched on a water bottle by a dying hewer in 1880 is the best-known thing ever written underground in County Durham.
County Durham Sinking begun 13 April 1849; production from 1853–54–1988 (merged with Vane Tempest, 1983) Coal, Fireclay
Seathwaite Wad Mine
Stealing graphite from this one Cumbrian fellside was made a felony by Act of Parliament in 1752 — the mineral was worth more than the miners.
Cumbria 15th century (earliest indirect evidence)–1891 Graphite
Seaton Delaval Colliery
A dozen shafts sunk on the Delaval estate over more than a century, and the pit village named in 'Blackleg Miner'.
Northumberland 1838–1960 Coal, Fireclay
Sedling Rake Mine
The mine takes its name from the packhorse track that served it, not the other way round -- the 'rake' outlived the workings it once supplied, and still crosses the moor today as a green lane.
County Durham 1818–1948 Lead, Fluorspar
Seedlow Lead Mine
A detailed account of the mine's 1764-71 working, by Robert Thornhill, was published in the Peak District Mines Historical Society's own journal in 1962 -- one of the society's earliest pieces of published research into an individual Derbyshire lead mine.
Derbyshire medieval (traced back ~7 centuries); main activity 17th-18th century–Last worked in the mid-19th century. Lead
Seend Ironstone Quarry
A brief Victorian iron rush saw three 50-foot blast furnaces built at this greensand ironstone quarry before high transport costs closed them within three decades; the site is now recognised as one of only two known Lower Cretaceous ironstone deposits in Britain.
Wiltshire Ore known since at least 1666; commercial working from 1856/57–Furnaces dismantled 1889/90 Iron
Seghill Colliery
Its manager opened the door between Seghill and Burradon in 1860 so the dead could be brought out that way.
Northumberland 1824–28 September 1962 Coal, Fireclay
Serridge Pit
Its name survives today chiefly through an official Coal Authority abandonment plan that groups it together with Ram Hill and several numbered Coalpit Heath pits on a single combined sheet -- evidence of how closely interlinked this district's underground workings were.
Gloucestershire c.1785–after 1845 Coal
Settlingstones Mine
For nearly a century, one small Northumberland mine was the entire world's commercial supply of a mineral almost nowhere else on Earth.
Northumberland 1687–1969 Witherite
Seven Sisters Colliery
Named for the seven sisters at the cutting of its first sod, and the reason the village around it is called Seven Sisters at all.
Neath Port Talbot 1872–1963 Coal
Seymour Colliery
A Staveley company pit on one seam, with a village of a hundred houses beside it.
Derbyshire Sinking began 1855; in production 1858–1918 Coal
Shakerley Colliery
Its owner vanished on the way to the bank in 1869, and his wife kept the pits working until he walked home from Liverpool.
Greater Manchester 1830s or 1840s–1938 Coal
Shap Granite Quarries
Its distinctive pink feldspar crystals have made Shap granite one of Britain's most recognisable building stones for over 150 years.
Cumbria 1864 (large-scale); small-scale working predates this–Still active Granite
Sharkham Point Iron Mine
A Devon hematite mine worked for over a century, its ore shipped to South Wales and Hartlepool, now a nature conservation area with several accessible adits.
Devon c. 1790 (extensively worked from the late 1830s)–1914-15 Iron
Sharlston Colliery
Its pit wheel wasn't just retired — it was cut clean in half, with one piece placed at each end of the village's main road, so nobody in Sharlston passes through without seeing it.
West Yorkshire Opened 1858; shafts sunk 1865–July 1993 Coal
Shaw Beck Gill Mine
A lead level in the valley of Shaw Beck, marked on historical Ordnance Survey maps, documented among the cluster of workings -- alongside Booze, Slei Gill, Punchard Gill, Whaw, Wetshaw and Fell End -- that made up Arkengarthdale's lead-mining industry.
North Yorkshire No reliable opening date has yet been located.–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead
Sherdley Colliery
Kept on as a pumping station for years after its own coal stopped, because it sat up dip.
Merseyside Established 1872-3; in the Mines List from 1873–Coal working ceased 1944; pumping continued Coal
Sheriff Hill Colliery
The gassiest pit on Gateshead Fell, where four explosions and a fire between 1793 and 1819 killed at least 65, thirty-three of them boys in a single morning.
Tyne and Wear By 1793–By 1895-97 Coal
Sherwood Colliery
A Mansfield Woodhouse pit that set a world tunnelling record and a British output record.
Nottinghamshire Sinking began 1901-2; first coal September 1902–January 1992 Coal
Shilbottle Colliery
Bought by the Co-operative Wholesale Society for £50 — and the only pit in the district to give its men paid holiday and a pension.
Northumberland 1807–1982 Coal
Shirebrook Colliery
A mining village of 600 people became a town of 11,000 within fifteen years of this pit being sunk — one of the fastest transformations of any community in this archive.
Derbyshire Sinking started 1896–April 1993 Coal
Shireoaks Colliery
Five years of sinking before it struck coal in 1859 — and though it stood in Nottinghamshire it spent its last twenty-three years administered from South Yorkshire.
Nottinghamshire 1859–May 1990 Coal
Shortwood Colliery
Bought by Handel Cossham in 1871 and reduced to pumping and ventilation for Parkfield.
South Gloucestershire Thought to be late 18th century; new shaft 1871–1936, with Parkfield Coal
Shotton Surface Mine
Its spoil was landscaped into a quarter-mile-long reclining woman and opened as a park eight years before the mine stopped.
Northumberland Permitted 2007–Summer 2020 Coal, Fireclay
Shotts Iron Works
Under the slogan 'Shotts lights the world' this ironworks' decorative gas lamp standards were exported across the British Empire, and can still be seen on the streets of Edinburgh's New Town.
North Lanarkshire Mineral lease taken 16 April 1801; first blast furnace 1802–1951 (furnaces blown out 1947; company wound up 1951/52) Iron
Shuttle Eye Colliery
Started by the landlord of the Blacksmiths Arms at Grange Moor crossroads, worked for over a century, and now under warehouses.
West Yorkshire 1862–1973 Coal
Silence Mine
A 1738 dispute over possession rights turned violent enough that 30-40 men defended the mine day and night against the sheriff's own officers -- a dispute not finally settled until Articles of Agreement were signed eleven years later, in 1749.
Derbyshire Worked from 1713–Closed in 1885 Lead
Silksworth Colliery
Lord Londonderry’s model colliery village, and the place where 150 eviction warrants were served on striking miners’ families in February 1891.
Tyne and Wear 1869–6 November 1971 Coal
Silver Gill Mine
Few British mine sites carry an archaeological date as precise as Silver Gill's: excavation has pinned its earliest workings to 1020-1200, a rare case of a medieval mine dated by evidence rather than inference from documents.
Cumbria worked 1020-1200 (archaeologically dated); documented from 1331–worked into the Elizabethan period; final closure date unrecorded Lead, Copper, Silver
Silver Hillocks Mine
Its knockstones were the anvils women worked at with 'bucking hammers' to break down freshly-drawn ore -- the only such examples left standing in Derbyshire.
Derbyshire No reliable opening date has yet been located.–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead
Silverband Mine
Historic England rates the surviving ropeway the best example of its kind used in metal mining anywhere in England — and, according to one study, parts of the dismantled system went on to a second life at the Aviemore Ski Centre in Scotland.
Cumbria Worked periodically for lead from at least the 19th century–Closed in the 1960s; reopened intermittently later in the 20th century Barite, Lead
Silverbrook Mine
The engine tower here is so thoroughly reclaimed by ivy that walkers regularly take it for an ornamental folly, with no idea a lead mine's pumping engine once stood inside it.
Devon 1852–1850s Lead, Silver
Silverdale Colliery
The last deep mine in North Staffordshire, closed on Christmas Eve 1998 — and its spoil heap has been burning since 1996.
Staffordshire 1830–December 1998 Coal, Ironstone
Silverhill Colliery
Set a European record for thin-seam coal mining just four years before closing for good — its old spoil tip is now crowned by a bronze miner testing for gas that never comes.
Nottinghamshire 1875–March 1993 (production ceased October 1992) Coal
Silverwood Colliery
A Rotherham colliery twice visited by reigning monarchs, marked by tragedy in a 1966 underground train collision, now reclaimed as parkland and a nature reserve.
South Yorkshire Shaft sinking began 1900; coal worked from 1904–1994 Coal
Sipton Mine
Its shaft housed the last hydraulic hoist engine used anywhere in the North Pennine orefield, in service until the mine's final closure in 1946, and supported its own workers' housing terrace and a Wesleyan chapel.
Northumberland 1850s (discovery); 1860s (galena working)–1923-1948 (Weardale Lead Co.); shaft closed 1946 Lead
Sir Francis Level (Lownathwaite Mine)
Sir Francis Level holds a genuine claim to technological distinction: the compressed-air rock drills installed here in 1870 were the first ever used in a Yorkshire mine, and the underground hydraulic engine that survives from the same era of investment is thought to be one of very few of its kind left anywhere.
North Yorkshire 1864–1882 Lead
Sirhowy Ironworks
One of the earliest coke-fired ironworks in Gwent, it grew to five blast furnaces before iron smelting ended in 1882.
Blaenau Gwent Founded 1778; first coke-fired furnace in the district–Iron smelting ended 1882; coke and lime production continued to 1905 Iron
Six Bells Colliery
The worst British colliery disaster since the war, and the 20-metre miner that now stands where the shafts were
Blaenau Gwent Shafts sunk from 1892–1988 Coal
Skelton Park Pit
Very little survives of Cleveland's ironstone industry as a whole -- Skelton Park is the exception, preserved almost by accident into the best physical record of how the whole district's mines actually worked.
North Yorkshire 1870–1938 Iron
Skye Marble Quarry
Britain's only true marble deposit, served historically by its own narrow-gauge railway to Broadford pier.
Highland hand-worked from at least 1703; industrialised 1907-13–1907-13 works failed by 1913-14 Marble
Slack, Mount Pleasant and Barmasters Grove Lead Mines
An 1882 probe of the mine's New Shaft found water at 222 feet, prompting a planned 800-yard sough extension that was started but never finished for lack of funds.
Derbyshire Documented from 1541–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead
Slaley Sough
Kept dry by an overlying layer of volcanic toadstone rather than by good drainage, and driven far beyond any useful ore -- possibly by investors who, as one historian put it, 'had more money than sense'.
Derbyshire Sough begun c.1740–Extended 1854-59; no later working recorded Lead
Slapewath Ironstone Mine
Thomas Charlton built rows of houses for his men beside the mine, and the village has been called Charltons ever since — though the mining also undermined one of the rows badly enough that it had to come down.
North Yorkshire 1864–1906 Ironstone
Slei Gill Mine
Flash floods in 2019 tore through the gill twice in one year, first exposing previously-unrecorded mine workings and then burying them again before they could be fully documented.
North Yorkshire Before 1066–Late 19th century Lead
Slitherstone and Linacre Lead Mines
Worked to 110 fathoms (202m) using nothing more than horse-gin haulage and manpower -- at a depth where a Derbyshire mine would usually have turned to steam.
Derbyshire Documented from mid-18th century–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead
Slitt Mine
A well-documented Weardale lead mine with surviving surface remains.
County Durham Early 1700s–1878 or later — sources disagree (see history) Lead
Smallcleugh Mine
A major Nenthead lead mine best remembered for the Ballroom Flat, a huge underground ore chamber where the local Masonic Lodge dined 28 guests in 1901.
Cumbria c.1770 (abandoned); restarted 1787 by the London Lead Company–Large-scale working ended c.1900; brief unsuccessful reopening 1963 Lead, Zinc
Smarts Quarry
A bedding surface covered in star-shaped feeding traces left by burrowing bivalves, unique in the Namurian grits of South Wales.
Carmarthenshire No reliable opening date has yet been located.–Disused by 1987, when the site was notified Sandstone
Smeaton Colliery
Six surface mines driven, two used; its 1953 washery served seven other collieries.
Midlothian Sinking and production from 1903–1978 Coal
Smelt Colliery
A day-level into Brymbo hill that opened in 1790, ended its life raising fireclay for the brickworks, and outlasted every other mine around it by nearly thirty years.
Wrexham 1790–1967 Coal, Fireclay
Smithy Wood Colliery
Its coal came out on a cable belt in an incline nearly a mile and a half long, and an aerial ropeway linked it to two other pits of the same company.
South Yorkshire 1890–1986 Coal
Snaefell Mine
The site of the Isle of Man's worst mining disaster in 1897 (20 dead) — and of a pumping waterwheel that was shipped to Cornwall when the mine closed in 1908, then brought back to the Island in 2003, nearly a century later.
Isle of Man 1856–1908 Zinc, Lead, Silver
Snailbeach Mine
Once one of the richest lead mines in Europe
Shropshire 1781–1955 Lead, Silver, Zinc, Barite, Fluorspar
Snake Mine
A small, one-man-scale mine in its final decades that nonetheless survives as a well-preserved Scheduled Monument, excavated by the Peak District Mines Historical Society in 1967 and later explored underground with its last working operator, Mr Hodgson, acting as guide.
Derbyshire possibly 17th century (timber rails found)–Worked sporadically until about 1920 by Mr Hodgson Lead
Sneyd Colliery
The Burslem pit where 57 men and boys died on New Year's Day 1942, in a coal-dust explosion touched off in a haulage drift they had only worked because of the war.
Staffordshire Early 19th century–July 1962 Coal, Fireclay, Ironstone
Snibston Colliery
Sunk by George and Robert Stephenson; its railway to the Leicester and Swannington line was one of Britain's earliest
Leicestershire 1831-32 (sinking); 1833 (production)–Own coal production ended 1983; wider site closed 1986 Coal
Snowdown Colliery
Called Dante's Inferno by its own workforce: 38°C, 80 per cent humidity, and 24 pints of water a shift.
Kent Sinking from 1907; first coal 1912–1987 Coal
Snydale Colliery
A small Featherstone pit that began with a borehole striking gas, not coal.
West Yorkshire Shafts sunk from 1863–Coal drawing stopped August 1965 Coal
Solsgirth Colliery
Solsgirth set a European coal-output record in 1975 and was retired gracefully in 1990 — twelve years before the flood that finally ended deep coal mining in Scotland struck a part of the wider complex it had already stopped working.
Clackmannanshire opened 1965–January 1990 Coal
South Bantaskine Colliery
Coal run straight out of the hillside into canal boats without a shaft, then a garden laid over the workings, then the Coal Board knocking the house down to mine it again.
Falkirk 1828 (Wilson); 1946 (National Coal Board)–About 1860, and again in 1959 Coal
South Caradon Mine
South Caradon's origin story is a classic of Cornish mining lore: a syndicate of miners who couldn't persuade London investors to back them persevered for three years on their own before striking a lode so rich it turned their near-worthless shares into a fortune almost overnight.
Cornwall 1836 (main lode struck); trial working from 1833–1885 Copper
South Crofty
Last operating tin mine in Cornwall; repeated restart attempts since closure
Cornwall 1592–1998 Tin, Copper
South Hooe Mine
South Hooe's silver assay of up to 180 ounces to the ton was exceptional even by the standards of the silver-rich Tamar Valley mines — richer, ton for ton, than the silver return most other British lead mines could ever hope to match.
Devon 13th century–1885 Lead, Silver
South Kirkby Colliery
A rescue officer, Frank Dale, was one of the ten who died in 1935 — killed by a second explosion while helping recover the men lost in the first.
South Yorkshire Sunk c. 1880-81–1988 Coal
South Leicester Colliery
The Hugglescote pit that ended as Ellistown's ventilation shaft, its steam winders made redundant by a tunnel
Leicestershire Sinking from January 1876–1983 (merged with Bagworth) Coal
South Liberty Colliery
The first pit sunk in the Bedminster coalfield and the last one left, 177 years later — pumped, it is said, by the same engine throughout
Bristol 1748–1925 Coal
South Polgooth Mine
Its tall granite chimney did double duty -- serving both the beam engine house and the arsenic calciners beside it, an unusual shared arrangement rarely seen at other Cornish mines.
Cornwall Recorded as a tin working in 1593–Trials still being conducted in 1916 Tin, Copper, Arsenic
South Skelton Mine
Known as the Van Pit: leased in 1865, it swallowed Boosbeck when the water beat it in 1887, worked on to 1954, and kept a pair of above-ground pony stables, rare in Cleveland, until well after closure.
North Yorkshire Leased 1865; shafts sunk and mining from 1872–1954 Ironstone
South Terras Mine
Britain's only uranium and radium mine; supplied some of Marie Curie's earliest radium samples
Cornwall c. 1870 (iron); 1889 (uranium)–1930 (early 1930s, mine abandoned) Uranium
South Wheal Frances
A pioneer as much as a producer: the first Cornish mine to use wire rope permanently instead of hemp or chains, and the site of the county's first cast-iron underground flood dam.
Cornwall 1820s–1918 (pumping finally stopped December 1919) Tin, Copper
Southrigg Colliery
The Southrigg pits east of Harthill, begun by a bankrupt coal merchant in 1883 and drowned out by 1939, whose No. 3 made Greenrigg village and whose Netherton chimney was blown down after lightning.
West Lothian 1883–1939 Coal
Spa Mine
The Branch Mine, so called because it went in under the railway — which subsided in 1879 and nearly took a train with it.
North Yorkshire 1864–1886 (lease ran to 1904) Ironstone
Spa Wood Mine
Leased in 1853 and eleven years from lease to first stone, and when it came the ore was poor; the mine spent the next seventy years stopping and starting.
North Yorkshire Leased 1853; production from 1864–1930 Ironstone
Speedwell Cavern
Speedwell has now been open to visitors, in one form or another, for far longer than it was ever worked as a lead mine — its failed investment paying off, in the end, as entertainment rather than ore.
Derbyshire 1771–1790 Lead
Speedwell Colliery
Worked for over two centuries — and so thoroughly redeveloped since that almost nothing of it can be seen today
Bristol Worked from the early 18th century–1936 Coal
Speedwell Colliery, Giltbrook
A ten-year pit that got its own railway: the Bennerley and Bulwell line was built past it in 1879.
Nottinghamshire 1875–1885 Coal
Speedwell Colliery, Staveley
The Staveley pit where a nine-year-old door-trapper started work in 1859; he ended up president of the Derbyshire Miners' Association.
Derbyshire 1841–By 1896 Coal
Speedwell Newbridge Colliery
It drew its air through an old shaft on the next gale, until the neighbour claimed the shaft and built a cover over the top.
Gloucestershire 1730s–1897 Coal
Springwell Colliery
Forty-seven killed in 1833, most of them boys; the ventilation was rebuilt afterwards, and four years later a dropped safety lamp killed twenty-seven more.
Tyne and Wear 1826–1932 Coal
Sprinkle and Nash Colliery
A shaft with no carriage and no guides, which killed three men and then the engineer four months later.
Pembrokeshire 1855–1865 Coal, Anthracite
St David's Colliery
The deepest pit in South Wales in 1832, sunk through a flood by Cornishmen, and the reason Llanelli has a district called New Dock.
Carmarthenshire Sinking begun 1827; shaft completed June 1832–June 1908 Coal
St Hilda’s Colliery
A pit in the middle of South Shields whose 1839 explosion made the case, in public, for ending the use of candles underground.
Tyne and Wear 1810–1940 Coal
St John's Colliery
The Llynfi valley's last deep mine, and the first pit to test the post-strike closure appeal.
Bridgend Sunk from 1908; first coal 1910–22 November 1985 Coal
St Just Amalgamated Mines
Its old tin ground now lies beneath a golf course between Nanpean farm and Cape Cornwall.
Cornwall Worked by at least 1907–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Tin, Copper
St Peter's Mine
An Allendale lead vein found in 1902 by a drainage tunnel that ran into it
Northumberland Vein discovered 1902–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead, Fluorspar
Stafford Colliery
The Duke of Sutherland's colliery and ironworks at Great Fenton, whose pits bore its founders' names and whose Sutherland Pit was said to be the deepest in Britain.
Staffordshire 1873–January 1969 Coal, Ironstone
Stags Fell Quarries
The most extensive stone workings in the Yorkshire Dales: flags and 'Hardraw Slates' won from short drifts in Stags Fell and sent out by rail from Hawes.
North Yorkshire By 1854–1930s Sandstone, Flagstone
Stanghow Mine
Sunk 126 feet in 1871, and its owner went bust in 1892; Cochrane took the lease and the last stone came out in 1921, seven years before anyone made the abandonment official.
North Yorkshire Shafts sunk 1871; production from 1872–Last stone 1921; abandoned 1928 Ironstone
Stanhopeburn Mine
The lead miners who drove the Shield Hurst Level found a fortune in fluorspar and walked straight past it -- it would be another forty years before anyone thought the mineral worth coming back for.
County Durham 1830–1982 Lead, Fluorspar
Steetley Colliery
Its own single shaft couldn't ventilate the mine properly — so the company solved the problem by sinking an entire second colliery fifteen years later, purely to give it somewhere for the air to go.
Nottinghamshire 1873-76–1983 Coal
Stirling Hill Quarry
Worked largely by shackled convict labour marched daily from Peterhead Prison to hand-break red granite, carried to the breakwater works on Scotland's only state-owned convict railway.
Aberdeenshire First quarry opened 1815–1956 Granite
Stockdale Colliery
A two-man drift near Thwaite that worked the Tan Hill Coal as the 'Stockdale Seam' until 1931.
North Yorkshire 1910–1931 (abandoned April 1932) Coal
Stoke Prior Salt Works
The largest salt works in Europe, closed not because the salt ran out but because taking more would have collapsed the ground
Worcestershire c. 1828–1972 Salt
Stone Edge Smelt Mill
Its tall square chimney, built around 1770, is thought to be the oldest surviving free-standing industrial chimney in England.
Derbyshire Built around 1770–Closed by 1852 Lead
Stonecroft and Greyside Mine
Its roofless Cornish engine house still stands in a field, the sockets for the engine beams visible in the wall like a face.
Northumberland 1851–1898 Lead, Barite
Stonehill Colliery
One of the largest pits near Bolton until a wall of burning cannel a hundred yards long filled its workings with smoke in 1877 and killed eighteen of the men beyond it.
Greater Manchester Before 1877–1888 Coal, Cannel Coal
Stonesfield Slate Mines
The site of the first dinosaur ever formally named and described — Megalosaurus, by William Buckland in 1824 — recovered from a village slate mine dug for roofing stone, not for science.
Oxfordshire Worked since at least the Roman period–1911 Limestone
Stotsfield Burn Mine
A medieval settlement's name carried into the twentieth century by the lead and fluorspar mine that took it.
County Durham Developed from 1863–1966 Lead, Fluorspar
Strelley Colliery
The pits at the top of Britain's first documented railway, whose bell-pit mounds are now a scheduled monument.
Nottinghamshire Later 16th century–Later 17th century Coal
Stromness Flagstone Quarries
Stromness was quite literally built from its own doorstep — flagstone quarried at the Point of Ness, just along the shore.
Orkney No reliable opening date has yet been located.–Still active (Quoyloo Quarry) Flagstone
Strontian Mines
The type locality of strontianite, and the reason the element strontium bears this village's name
Highland 1725–1991 Lead, Silver, Zinc, Barite
Sun Hush Mine
Named for the way the ore was found — a torrent of released water stripped the hillside bare to expose the vein.
North Yorkshire Working by 1888–No reliable closure date has yet been located. Lead
Sundrum Colliery
Two mines under one name, twenty years apart, on the same ground at Coylton.
South Ayrshire Dalmellington pits by 1894; NCB mine sunk 1952–Earlier mine 1933; NCB mine 1961 Coal
Surrender Mine
Surrender's own 1841 accounts recorded not a single ton of slag among the 54 tons of lead it smelted that year — a small, precise number that speaks to just how efficiently a well-run 19th-century smelt mill could actually work.
North Yorkshire before 1720–1880 Lead
Susanna Mine
The richest and most technologically significant mine in the Leadhills lead-mining district, worked from around the 16th century to 1869.
South Lanarkshire 16th century–1869 Lead
Sutton Manor Colliery
Its spoil tip now carries Dream, a 20-metre sculpture of a girl's head commissioned by former miners
Merseyside 1906–1991 Coal
Swinden Quarry
The quarry, the railway and the village each call it something different — Swinden to the quarrymen, Rylstone to the railway, and Cracoe to the shunter built for it in 1994.
North Yorkshire 1899–Still active Limestone
Swinnergill Mine
The mine and its smelt mill passed through the same Smith-Pomfret ownership dispute that produced Beldi Hill Mine's own House-of-Lords lawsuit, just across the same valley -- Swinnergill's operators, Lord Pomfret and Peter Denys, were the losing side of that thirty-year fight.
North Yorkshire Established in the late 1740s.–Active until the mid-1830s Lead
Swithland Slate Quarry
Its slate roofed Charnwood and its headstones fill Midland churchyards — and the burrows of Cambrian animals are still visible on some of them.
Leicestershire Roman; vernacular roofing from about 1750–1887 (Great Pit; northern pit 1838) Slate
Sygun Copper Mine
Reopened in 1986 as an underground show mine in the heart of Snowdonia
Gwynedd 18th century–1903 Copper

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