Lofthouse Colliery

Overview

A Wakefield pit remembered for one of the most avoidable disasters in British mining: in March 1973 a face was driven into abandoned 19th-century workings nobody had checked for, and three million gallons of water killed seven men in seconds.

History

Two shafts were sunk at Lofthouse between 1873 and 1877, reaching the Silkstone seam at 321 m, and by 1895 the colliery was raising around a thousand tons a day. It worked the West Yorkshire coalfield through the 20th century as part of a landscape already honeycombed by much older workings — among them the long-defunct Old Low Laithes Colliery, whose flooded shafts and roadways lay somewhere in the ground above and around it. On 21 March 1973 the South 9B district broke into those workings. The disaster that followed killed seven men and made the reputation of Arthur Scargill, then a compensation agent for the Yorkshire NUM, who spent six days with the bereaved families and then used 19th-century mining notebooks at the public inquiry to show that the National Coal Board could have known. He was elected Yorkshire Area president later that year. The colliery itself closed in 1981, with many of its men transferring to the new Selby coalfield.

Geology

The Yorkshire coalfield's seams are bedded Carboniferous coals, worked here in the Flockton Thin among others. The hazard that defined Lofthouse is not really geological but archival: two centuries of earlier mining had left the ground riddled with abandoned roadways and shafts, many of them flooded, and the only reliable guide to where they were was the paper record. Where that record was incomplete or unconsulted, a modern face could drive straight into a reservoir.

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

Workings

Deep-mined workings on several horizons, the South 9B face lying about 750 ft below the surface at the time of the inrush.

Closure

Lofthouse closed in 1981; the Coal Authority's abandonment plans for the colliery and its spoil heap are dated April 1981.

What remains

The colliery has gone. Its site is now Lofthouse Colliery Nature Park, and the seven men are commemorated there.

Nothing of the working colliery survives; the ground has been landscaped.

Redevelopment

A public country park on the former pit site.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Disasters & major incidents

• Lofthouse Colliery disaster, 1973
  21 March 1973 · Flooding / Inundation · 7 fatalities
  About three million gallons of water burst into the South 9B district of Lofthouse Colliery from abandoned 19th-century workings in the early hours of 21 March 1973, killing seven men. Only one body was ever recovered.

Recorded claims

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

• On 21 March 1973 an inrush of about three million imperial gallons (14,000 m³) of water from abandoned workings in the Flockton Thin seam flooded the South 9B district, killing seven men about 750 ft below the surface. ^1,2
• The inquiry found the water came from uncharted old workings connected to abandoned shafts of the long-defunct Old Low Laithes Colliery. ²
• National Coal Board surveyors knew the flooded shaft's location but believed it did not reach the depth of the modern workings; British Geological Survey records showed that it did, and the Board had not checked them. ¹
• The colliery closed in 1981 and many of its men transferred to the Selby coalfield; abandonment plans are dated April 1981. ^1,3
• The site is now Lofthouse Colliery Nature Park. ¹
• The two shafts were sunk between 1873 and 1877 to the Silkstone seam at 321 m, and by 1895 the colliery was producing around 1,000 tons of coal a day. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Sources

1. (secondary) Lofthouse Colliery disaster — Wikipedia
2. (primary) Lofthouse Colliery Disaster, Wakefield 1973 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) Mine plans NE106, NE884 and spoil heap plans NEST17: Lofthouse — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans catalogue
4. (secondary) Lofthouse Colliery — oldminer.co.uk

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026