Lundhill Colliery

Overview

One of the largest and deepest pits in Yorkshire when firedamp exploded in it on 19 February 1857 and killed 189 of the 200 men and boys underground. The fire that followed had to be put out by diverting a stream into the mine, and the last body came out in July.

History

Wombwell was farming country with a small population before Lundhill was sunk, and the colliery quickly became the hub of the place. It was among the largest and deepest pits in Yorkshire, employing roughly 290 men and boys, two thirds of them on the day shift, cutting five to six hundred tons a day over a six-day week. Some of them were ten years old. Most lived in or near Wombwell, some within sight of the headgear. It was known to be a dangerous pit. Sinkers had already been killed by an explosion there in August 1854 (see Disasters, below).

On 19 February 1857 firedamp exploded and killed 189 of the 200 men and boys who were underground (see Disasters, below). It was the first disaster to reach the front page of the Illustrated London News.

The pit went back to work and was still returning coal in the 1890s under the Wombwell Main Coal Company, employing 384 in 1894. The company then closed it, finding it more convenient to wind Lundhill's coal from the neighbouring Wombwell Main shafts.

Geology

The South Yorkshire Coalfield around Wombwell, the same ground the Barnsley seam runs through and that made the district one of the richest and gassiest in the country.

Workings

Three shafts. The first went down 230 feet and was used for pumping water and as a downcast; the second, 650 feet, was a downcast and the coal-drawing shaft; the third, 640 feet, was a downcast and the furnace shaft. Men went down in a cage with safety boots that mostly did not fit, a helmet and a wax candle. Ventilation was poor enough that firedamp could gather through a day without anyone noticing.

Closure

Work went on at Lundhill until the 1890s, when the Wombwell Main Coal Company closed it, finding it more practicable and convenient to wind the coal from Wombwell Main next door.

What remains

The shafts lie under the greens of Hillies golf course at Wombwell, and nothing of the colliery stands. The memorial to the 1857 dead is in the churchyard of All Saints, Darfield, over the grave where the unidentified were buried.

None of the pit above ground. The memorial and the mass grave at Darfield, and the line of the colliery railway to the Dearne and Dove Canal at Lundhill Bridge.

Related mines

• Wombwell Main Colliery — Both owned by the Wombwell Main company in the 1890s under the same manager, W. Gray.

Disasters & major incidents

• Lundhill Colliery explosion, 1854
  22 August 1854 · Explosion · 6 fatalities
  On 22 August 1854, as the Lundhill shaft near Barnsley was being sunk towards the Barnsley thick coal, firedamp that had often been seen issuing from a drainage borehole in the shaft bottom came out in force and exploded at the sinkers' candles, killing six. The owners had supplied a ventilating engine, air pipes and safety lamps, but the agent and contractor had not used them and were absent that morning. Two inquests cleared the owners.
• Lundhill Colliery explosion
  19 February 1857 · Explosion · 189 fatalities
  Firedamp exploded twenty minutes after the men had eaten their dinner underground, killing 189 of the 200 below. The pit then caught fire, and the only way to put it out was to divert a stream into the workings, which left the bodies where they lay for months.

Culture

• Two Trains of Pleasure (1859) (Literature)
  The 1859 excursion described in 'Two Trains of Pleasure' went down Lundhill two years after its 1857 explosion.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Lundhill' (catalogue 3280, Abdy, Winter,Furnace, dated 1895); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ⁴

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery employed roughly 290 men and boys, two thirds of them working days, raising five to six hundred tons of coal a day over a six-day week. Some were as young as ten, though most were eighteen or older, and they went down with safety boots that were mostly too big, a helmet and a little wax candle. ¹
• The first shaft went down 230 feet and was used to pump water and as a downcast; the second went down 650 feet and served as downcast and coal-drawing shaft; the third went down 640 feet and was the furnace shaft, also downcast. ¹
• The Engineer reported in July 1857 that the proprietors, in spite of their own losses, had charged no rent on the men's houses since the explosion. ²
• Work continued at Lundhill until the 1890s, when the owners, the Wombwell Main company, closed it, finding it more practicable and convenient to wind the coal from the nearby Wombwell Main Colliery. ¹
• Lundhill Colliery was established in March 1853 by William Taylor junior and Company, who took a lease on the coal under land belonging to Samuel Swift of Hemingfield. The sinking was done by the contractor John Jebson and took about two years, going down over two hundred yards. ³
• The colliery was simply Lund Hill at first. For a while it traded as Low Elsecar and Lund Hill Colliery, to tie itself to the Elsecar coal trade and its reputation — not to be confused with Earl Fitzwilliam's own Low Elsecar Colliery over the hill at Hemingfield. After 1856 the firm became the Lund Hill Coal Company, following a rearrangement of the partnership: William Taylor junior, a linen manufacturer, had run into financial difficulties, and his partner Thomas Spicer Galland, a London barrister, brought in Edward Thornhill Simpson of Walton near Wakefield and William Stewart of Wakefield. The disaster of 1857 came just as the new firm got going, and eventually bankrupted Taylor. ³
• The shafts lie beneath the greens of Hillies golf course at Wombwell. The colliery railway skirted what is now the Hillies View housing development and crossed the Dearne and Dove Canal at Lundhill Bridge; the Greenland shaft stood on what is now Greenlands farmland. ³
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Lundhill' (catalogue 3280, Abdy, Winter,Furnace, dated 1895); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Lundhill Colliery explosion — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Lundhill Colliery — Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
3. (secondary) Lundhill Colliery Disaster, 19th February 1857 — Friends of Hemingfield Colliery
4. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: LUNDHILL — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
5. (primary) Lundhill Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

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