New Monckton Colliery

Overview

The Monckton collieries at Havercroft and South Hiendley, on the edge of Royston north-east of Barnsley. Sinking began in 1874, coal came in 1878 and coke ovens beside the pit in 1879; grown to six shafts and nearly 4,000 people, it was closed by the Coal Board on economic grounds in December 1966.

History

Sinking at Monckton began in 1874, coal production in 1878, and the first coke ovens beside the colliery started in 1879, the beginning of a coke works that outlived the pit by nearly fifty years. The Monckton Main Company owned it, and later New Monckton Collieries Ltd, whose coking plant was registered in 1901 as a subsidiary, the Monckton Coke and Chemical Company, with 180 beehive ovens. The pithead lay just over the border in what is now West Yorkshire, but the colliery was Royston's great employer, and many of the miners who came when it opened had travelled from the Black Country, where several mines had closed; a doctoral study of 2001 suggested this left Royston with an accent slightly different from its neighbours'.

The colliery grew fast: 1,196 people in 1894, 2,476 at No. 1 in 1915 and 3,661 at Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in 1923, all in the Barnsley seam. A second pair of shafts, Nos. 3 and 4, worked from South Hiendley, and the colliery was developed to six shafts in all. By 1954 Nos. 1 and 2 worked the Barnsley, Beamshaw, Kent, Lidgett and Winter seams and Nos. 3 and 4 the Haigh Moor and Kent. Its railway reached the Aire and Calder Navigation, the spoil tip, the Midland and the Hull and Barnsley, and in the 1950s three saddle-tank engines worked the day shift. The museum's list of those killed here runs to 138 names, among them the banksman Charles Gelder, killed by an explosion of dynamite on the surface in 1876.

At nationalisation in 1947 the colliery employed 3,840 and raised 830,000 tons. The Coal Board closed it on economic grounds on 3 December 1966, and its engine Monckton No. 1, a Hunslet saddle tank delivered new in 1953, went to North Gawber Colliery and is now kept by the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. The coke works carried on with coal from other pits until 2014. The Royston Drift worked nearby from the mid-1970s until 1989, and most of the colliery site is now Rabbit Ings Country Park.

Geology

Yorkshire coalfield: the Barnsley, Beamshaw, Kent, Lidgett, Winter, Haigh Moor, Swallow Wood and Shafton seams.

Workings

Six shafts: Nos. 1 and 2 at Havercroft, worked with Nos. 5 and 6, and Nos. 3 and 4 at South Hiendley; coke ovens beside the pit from 1879.

Closure

Closed by the NCB on economic grounds; the Nos. 3 and 4 Shafton plans are dated 3 December 1966.

What remains

Most of the site has been cleared and is Rabbit Ings Country Park.

The former colliery fan house still stood in 2025, stripped and repurposed.

Redevelopment

Rabbit Ings Country Park covers most of the colliery site.

Recorded claims

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

• Sinking at Monckton began in 1874, coal production in 1878 and the first coke ovens in 1879. ^1,2
• Monckton employed 1,196 in 1894, 3,661 in 1923 and 3,840 in 1947, when it raised 830,000 tons. ³
• New Monckton Collieries' coking plant was registered in 1901 as the Monckton Coke and Chemical Company, with 180 beehive ovens. ⁴
• Many of the miners who came to Monckton Colliery when it opened had travelled from the Black Country. ¹
• The NCB closed New Monckton on economic grounds in 1966; Nos. 3 and 4 were abandoned on 3 December 1966. ^1,2,5
• The colliery railway reached the Aire and Calder Navigation, the spoil tip and the Midland and Hull and Barnsley lines; its engine Monckton No. 1 is kept at Embsay. ⁶
• Most of the colliery site is now Rabbit Ings Country Park. ^1,2
• The former colliery fan house stood in 2025, stripped and repurposed. ⁷

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Royston, South Yorkshire — Wikipedia
2. (observational) A mining remnant (Geograph 7991639) — Geograph
3. (primary) Monckton Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Monckton Coke Works — Wikipedia
5. (primary) BGS mine plan: New Monckton 3, 4, Shafton, abandoned 3 December 1966 — BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans
6. (secondary) Monckton (Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway) — Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
7. (observational) Monckton Coke Works (remains), Royston, October 2025 — 28DaysLater

Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026