North Gawber Colliery

Overview

A Barnsley pit of the 1850s that outlasted most of its neighbours by moving seam and then shaft: it was merged with Darton in 1948 around a coal-winding shaft sunk in 1926, and ended by merging into Woolley after the 1984 strike.

History

Three shafts were sunk at Mapplewell between 1850 and 1852 and the colliery opened in 1854 under Fountain and Burnley, who held it until nationalisation. It worked the Barnsley seam through the official returns to 1915, adding Kent's Thick, and employed between six and eight hundred for most of that time. The figures dip sharply to 151 in 1933 and then climb again: 780 by 1940, 860 at nationalisation and 1,497 in 1954, of whom 1,214 worked underground. By then the pit had been remade. A coal-winding shaft on the Lidgett seam, sunk in 1926, became the focus of a merger with the neighbouring Darton colliery in 1948, and two of the three original shafts were filled. One of two surface drifts was later extended to carry the whole of the output. The National Coal Board's own account of 1967 has 1,160 men producing 346,000 tons a year from the Top Haigh Moor, Low Haigh Moor and Lidgett seams. After the strike of 1984 and 1985 North Gawber was merged with Woolley next door; the link was short-lived and the colliery closed in December 1985, the surface work finishing in 1987.

Geology

The South Yorkshire coalfield: the Barnsley seam first, with Kent's Thick by 1915, and in the pit's last decades the Lidgett and the Top and Low Haigh Moor.

Workings

Three shafts sunk between 1850 and 1852, two of them later filled, and a fourth sunk in 1926 to wind the Lidgett coal — the one the 1948 merger with Darton was built around. Two surface drifts, one of which was extended to carry the whole output. A connecting line ran to the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at Darton, steep enough that relatively large locomotives were used on it.

Closure

North Gawber merged with Woolley Colliery after the 1984 and 1985 strike. The link was short-lived: the Durham Mining Museum gives the closure as December 1985 and the railway historian David Beilby says it closed completely in 1987.

What remains

The colliery site is scrubland grown over with birch, photographed in 2009 by a naturalist looking for fungi rather than industry.

None recorded; the ground has gone back to scrub and birch.

Related mines

• Woolley Colliery — The two were merged after the strike of 1984 and 1985, North Gawber going into Woolley; the arrangement lasted barely a year before North Gawber closed.

Nearby mines

• East Gawber Colliery — 1.7 km SE
• Woolley Colliery — 3.9 km NW
• Carlton Main Colliery — 4.5 km E
• Barnsley Main Colliery — 4.7 km SE
• Huskar Pit — 5.1 km W

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 Durham Mining Museum records the sinking as started in 1850-52, the colliery opened in 1854 and closed in December 1985, under Fountain and Burnley and then the National Coal Board, working the Barnsley seam and later the Lidgett, Low Haigh Moor and Top Haigh Moor. ¹
• Two of the three shafts sunk in 1850-52 have been filled in. The Lidgett coal-winding shaft, sunk in 1926, was the focal point of the merger with the nearby Darton colliery in 1948, and one of two surface drifts was later extended to carry the whole of the output. The National Coal Board's leaflet 'Coal in Barnsley Area' records 1,160 men producing 346,000 tons from the Top Haigh Moor, Low Haigh Moor and Lidgett seams. ¹
• Following the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985 the colliery merged with nearby Woolley colliery; the link was short-lived. David Beilby's account says it closed completely in 1987, where the Durham Mining Museum gives December 1985 — the difference is most likely between the end of coal winding and the end of the site. (disputed) ^1,2
• A feature of the colliery was its connecting line to the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at Darton, which was steeply graded and led to relatively large locomotives being used there. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) North Gawber Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (observational) North Gawber Colliery — David Beilby

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026