Lings Colliery

Overview

A north Derbyshire colliery sunk on Williamthorpe Road in 1840 by the Hardwick Colliery Company, which had been formed ten years earlier out of the Wingerworth Coal Company. It worked the Top Hard coal until it closed in 1896. Its real mark on the district came after that: the water left standing in its abandoned workings filled a basin two miles across, and when the same company came to sink Williamthorpe through that ground in 1901 it managed only 180 of 550 yards in two years.

History

The Hardwick Colliery Company was formed in 1830 out of the Wingerworth Coal Company, and in 1840 it sank Lings colliery on Williamthorpe Road near Chesterfield. The pit produced Top Hard coal, the seam that carried the north Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalfield, and was still listed under the Wingerworth Coal Co. in the official list of collieries at work in 1880. It closed in 1896. By 1890 the company was looking for new leases, and one covering a large quantity of coal was bought by John Chambers, one of the owners. In 1900 the concern sold out to form a new Hardwick Coal Company with share capital of £350,000, which bought up other small colliery companies and private partnerships that had worked the area since the early 1800s. Its ambition was to reach the Blackshale seam and establish a first-class colliery, and sinking began at Williamthorpe in 1901. That is where Lings mattered most. The Williamthorpe shafts were sunk into a basin of water two miles across left by the old Lings workings. In two years only 180 of the 550 yards had been achieved, and the ground was yielding two and a half tons of water a minute at 600 to 700 pounds per square inch. The answer was to line the shaft with iron tubbing nineteen feet in diameter, the plates fitting so tightly that the shaft was watertight through the whole extent of the flooded strata. Williamthorpe was completed in 1905 and became the deepest colliery in the Midlands.

Geology

The north Derbyshire coalfield. Lings worked the Top Hard coal, the seam that carried the district. What it left behind was as consequential as what it took: abandoned workings in permeable measures filled with water over the following decades, creating a basin two miles in diameter that had to be sunk through rather than pumped out when the deeper Blackshale seam was reached for at Williamthorpe.

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

Workings

A shaft colliery on Williamthorpe Road working the Top Hard. No depth or shaft detail for Lings itself was found in the sources read; what is recorded is the volume of water its workings held afterwards — enough to yield two and a half tons a minute at 600 to 700 pounds per square inch into the Williamthorpe shafts sunk through the same ground.

Closure

Lings closed in 1896 after fifty-six years on the Top Hard, at a point when its owners were already acquiring leases for the deeper coal that would become Williamthorpe.

What remains

Nothing of the colliery survives above ground. The name persists locally at Lings, on the ground between Holmewood and Williamthorpe, where the reclaimed colliery country is now used for angling and open space.

Related mines

• Holmewood Colliery — Both were Wingerworth and Hardwick company pits in the same corner of north Derbyshire, Holmewood developed from 1868 while Lings was still working.
• Williamthorpe Colliery — The same company's later and deeper pit, sunk from 1901 through the two-mile basin of water left standing in Lings's abandoned workings; Lings is named on the Williamthorpe record.

Nearby mines

• Holmewood Colliery — 1.7 km NE
• Williamthorpe Colliery — 2.3 km N
• Grassmoor Colliery — 3.5 km N
• Avenue Colliery — 4.8 km NW
• Arkwright Colliery — 6.0 km N

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 Hardwick Colliery Company was formed in 1830 from the Wingerworth Coal Company and sank Lings colliery on Williamthorpe Road in 1840; it produced Top Hard coal until its closure in 1896. ¹
• The Williamthorpe shafts were sunk from 1901 into a two-mile diameter basin of water left by the old Lings workings; only 180 of the 550 yards had been achieved in two years, the ground yielding 2.5 tons of water a minute at 600 to 700 psi. ²
• The Williamthorpe shaft was lined with nineteen-foot diameter iron tubbing whose plates fitted so tightly that the shaft was watertight through the whole extent of the flooded strata; it was completed in 1905 and became the deepest colliery in the Midlands. ²
• Lings colliery was returned under the ownership of the Wingerworth Coal Co. in the official list of collieries at work in 1880. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Heath and Holmewood collieries (oldminer.co.uk) — oldminer.co.uk (Andrew Bridgewater)
2. (secondary) Williamthorpe Colliery (oldminer.co.uk) — oldminer.co.uk (Andrew Bridgewater)

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