Rudland Colliery

Overview

Nearly 270 moorland coal pits in parallel rows on Rudland Rigg above Bransdale, with an upper colliery of some 140 more, worked for lime-burning coal from the eighteenth century until about 1914.

History

Rudland Colliery is a spread of nearly 270 pits in near-parallel rows running north-east from around Rudland Farm up to and beyond the road on Rudland Rigg, the ridge between Bransdale and Farndale; another 140 or so around the summit formed Upper Rudland Colliery. Mining on the ridge goes back at least to the 1730s, and the thin, poor coal lay under about twelve feet of shale and rock. In August 1780 Thomas Duncombe let the combined Rudland and Rudland Farm collieries to William Sturdy, who paid by the acre according to the thickness of the seam and was still working at the end of 1801. His grant obliged him to leave pillars of coal at least a yard thick between the bords: proof that, though the rows of shafts are often called bell pits, the coal was being worked by bord and pillar by then. Steward Seaton judged Sturdy's 8½-inch seam the most even and productive of the Duncombe pits, and the best placed for selling coal to the lime-burners and villages. Lime burning was seasonal, so wages fell in winter and men left the pits; in 1793 a good hand earned 18 to 25 shillings a week for seven or eight hours a day. In the early twentieth century the Green family, smallholders on the ridge, sank two shallow pits and drove bords into the twelve-inch seam, carting the coal to Mell Bank Quarry for lime burning and selling the rest in Gillamoor and Fadmoor, until old workings stopped them around 1914.

Geology

Thin Jurassic coal of the North York Moors, 8 to 12 inches thick, under about twelve feet of shale and rock.

Workings

Rows of shallow shafts worked by bord and pillar, with yard-wide pillars left to protect the surface; the twentieth-century pits had seven-yard shafts and bords four to six feet wide and three feet high.

Closure

Mining ended around 1914, when the Green family's workings met old workings.

What remains

Rows of shaft mounds remain visible across the moor beside the Rudland Rigg track.

Hundreds of shaft mounds in near-parallel rows.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Blakey Colliery — Both Duncombe estate collieries supplying lime coal, rated together by the steward Seaton in 1791 (NMRS).

Recorded claims

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

• Nearly 270 pits run north-east from Rudland Farm, with around 140 more forming Upper Rudland Colliery. ¹
• In August 1780 William Sturdy took the farm of Rudland Colliery from Thomas Duncombe and was still working it at the end of 1801. ¹
• Sturdy's grant required pillars of coal at least a yard thick between the bords. ¹
• Coal mining on Rudland Rigg started early in the 1730s, from over a hundred pits east and west of the ridge. ²
• The Green family sank two pits in the early twentieth century, and mining ended around 1914. ^1,2
• The shaft mounds can still be seen beside the Rudland Rigg track north of Gillamoor. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Rudland Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Rudland, North Riding of Yorkshire (family history) — laurencebarber.ca
3. (observational) Bell Pits on Rudland Rigg — GooseyGoo

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026