North Staveley Colliery

Overview

A small coal mine was sunk on Aston Common in the 1840s, within Rotherham Rural District but six miles east of Sheffield, between Aston in South Yorkshire and Beighton, then in Derbyshire. In 1864 its workings were taken over and developed by the North Staveley Colliery Company, part of the Staveley Coal and Iron Company of north Derbyshire, which extended the workings and built housing, a chapel and a reading room for its workers. The parish of Aston grew by over seventy per cent in the following decade.

History

A small coal mining operation commenced in the 1840s on Aston Common, south of Rotherham and east of Sheffield, on ground lying between Aston in South Yorkshire and Beighton — then in Derbyshire, though now part of South Yorkshire itself. In 1864 the workings of the Aston colliery were taken over and developed by the North Staveley Colliery Company, part of the Staveley Coal and Iron Company based in north Derbyshire. The company did not merely extend the coal workings: it built housing, a chapel and a reading room for its workers. The effect on the parish was immediate and measurable. Between the censuses of 1861 and 1871 the population of Aston rose by 672 people, an increase of over seventy per cent — the sort of number that turns a farming township into a colliery village within a single decade. Aston has since gone the other way and become a commuter town for Sheffield and Rotherham, with over 14,000 inhabitants by 1991. An industrial tramway connected the mine with the railway line between Sheffield and Worksop. The colliery was later acquired by the Sheffield Coal Company. Nothing read for this record gives a closure date, an output figure or a workforce. The timing is worth noting. The Staveley Coal and Iron Company had been registered only the year before, in 1863, under an initiative led by the businessman Henry Davis Ppochin, and in 1864 itself Richard Barrow was selling a number of his properties into it, the Speedwell, Seymour, Hollingwood, New Hollingwood and Springwell collieries among them. The takeover of a small pit on Aston Common belongs to that same burst of acquisition.

Geology

The colliery worked the South Yorkshire Coalfield, where the Coal Measures lie in near-horizontal beds and seams within the Carboniferous sequence, laid down in deltaic and swamp conditions and later gently folded. The ground here sits on the old county boundary, and the coalfield takes no notice of it: the same seams run under Aston in Yorkshire and Beighton in what was Derbyshire, which is part of why a north Derbyshire company came to work a Yorkshire pit. No source read for this record names the seams worked.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

A colliery on Aston Common, connected by an industrial tramway to the railway between Sheffield and Worksop. Nothing read for this record describes its shafts, its depth or its method of working. What the sources do describe is the surface settlement built around it from 1864 — housing, a chapel and a reading room.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The colliery passed from the North Staveley Colliery Company to the Sheffield Coal Company at some point after 1864, and nothing read here carries the story further.

What remains

Built over. Aston Common Industrial Estate now covers the area of the former colliery.

None identified. The site is occupied by an industrial estate; nothing read for this record describes a surviving colliery structure.

Nearby mines

• Brookhouse Colliery — 0.6 km SW
• Fence Colliery — 2.2 km NW
• Kiveton Park Colliery — 3.8 km SE
• Treeton Colliery — 3.8 km NW
• Orgreave Colliery — 4.3 km NW

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.

• Aston Colliery was a small coal mine sunk on Aston Common, within Rotherham Rural District but six miles east of Sheffield, in the 1840s; in 1864 its workings were taken over and developed by the North Staveley Colliery Company, part of the Staveley Coal and Iron Company based in north Derbyshire, and it was later acquired by the Sheffield Coal Company. ¹
• The North Staveley Colliery Company not only extended the coal workings but built housing, a chapel and a reading room for its workers. ¹
• The population of the parish of Aston increased by 672 between 1861 and 1871, an increase of over 70%. ¹
• The Staveley Coal and Iron Co. was registered in 1863 under an initiative of a group of businessmen led by Henry Davis Pochin, and in 1864 Richard Barrow sold a number of properties to the company including the Speedwell, Seymour, Hollingwood, New Hollingwood and Springwell collieries. ²
• An industrial tramway connected the mine with the railway line between Sheffield and Worksop. ¹
• Aston Common Industrial Estate now covers the area of the former colliery. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) North Staveley Colliery — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Staveley Coal and Iron Co — Grace's Guide to British Industrial History

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 5 September 2026