Reservoir Colliery

Overview

The Moira Colliery Company's pit at the head of the Ashby Canal near Overseal, also called Cut End Pit, working the Moira Main and Little coals from 1875. Its bright-burning house coal went by canal to Oxford and London; it employed up to 578 in 1923 and closed soon after nationalisation, in 1948.

History

Reservoir Colliery stood a few yards from Wadlands Wharf, the terminus of the Ashby Canal near Overseal, and was also known as Cut End Pit, a 'cut' being a canal. It was one of the Moira Colliery Company's pits, worked alongside its Rawdon pit from about 1875. Its main seam was six feet thick and very productive, and its coal burnt clean and bright; it was popular in the Oxford colleges and in London. Coal went by horse-drawn wagon to the wharf and by barge down the Ashby Canal to the Coventry Canal and the Grand Union.

The colliery raised household, manufacturing and steam coal from the Moira Main and Little seams, employing 320 in 1894, 486 in 1915 and 578 in 1923, and 450 through the 1930s. Two stallmen, William Hart and Thomas Patrick, died after an explosion of gas on 8 December 1886. Twenty deaths are recorded at the pit between 1885 and 1924, most from falls of roof and coal, a few of them from natural causes. At nationalisation in 1947 it raised 150,000 tons with 326 people under the National Coal Board, but it closed in 1948, the year after.

Geology

Leicestershire and South Derbyshire coalfield: the Moira Main (about six feet thick) and Little seams.

Workings

Unknown.

Closure

Closed in March 1948 by the NMRS NCB list; a walk guide gives 1947.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Moira Collieries — Moira Colliery Company pits.

What's uncertain

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

• Reservoir Colliery closed in 1947. (disputed) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• Reservoir Colliery was also known as Cut End Pit, from its place at the canal's end. ¹
• Its six-foot coal was very productive and burnt clean and bright, and was popular in the Oxford colleges and in London. ¹
• Coal went by horse-drawn wagon to Wadlands Wharf and by barge down the Ashby Canal. ¹
• Reservoir employed 320 in 1894, 486 in 1915, 578 in 1923 and 326 in 1947, when it raised 150,000 tons. ^2,3
• It worked the Moira Main and Little seams. ²
• Reservoir Colliery closed in 1948. ⁴
• Reservoir Colliery closed in 1947. (disputed) ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) The National Forest: Overseal walk (written guide) — Discovering Britain (Royal Geographical Society)
2. (primary) Reservoir Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Moira Colliery Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) NCB Collieries - England (Northern Mine Research Society) — Northern Mine Research Society

Record created: 5 October 2026 · Last researched: 5 October 2026