Shipley Colliery

Overview

The Miller Mundy family's collieries on the Shipley estate near Ilkeston, worked from the eighteenth century, served by their own Nutbrook Canal from 1796 and employing over a thousand by 1880. The Woodside and Coppice pits closed in the 1960s; the site is now Shipley Country Park.

History

Coal was being mined on the Shipley estate by the middle of the eighteenth century, and the estate passed to the Miller Mundy family, whose name became synonymous with Shipley. To get their coal to market they built the Nutbrook Canal from Shipley to the Erewash Canal near Trowell, opened in 1796, and canal and later railways carried the expansion of the pits. In 1880 more than a thousand people worked at the collieries, which produced about 300,000 tons a year.

On 4 March 1857, at A. M. Mundy's colliery, gas discharged from the roof fired at a candle set on the floor; six men were burned but escaped, and others who had waited at a gate-road end for a boy they thought left behind were caught, eight dying in all. After Alfred Edward Miller Mundy's death in 1920 the estate was sold and the Shipley Colliery Company took over until nationalisation. The Woodside Colliery, whose gate memorial reads '1847 Shipley Woodside Colliery 1961', and the Coppice pit closed in the 1960s as uneconomic, ending several hundred years of deep mining. After a spell of opencast working the land became Shipley Country Park in 1976.

Geology

Derbyshire Coal Measures: the Coombe, Waterloo and Deep Hard among the seams on the plans.

Workings

Several pits on the estate, among them Woodside and Coppice; the Nutbrook Canal and later railways for carriage.

Closure

The Woodside and Coppice pits closed in the 1960s as uneconomic; the Woodside memorial dates that colliery 1847-1961.

What remains

A memorial of replica headstocks, a third of the original height but topped by the original winding wheels, marks the Woodside site, with gates lettered '1847 Shipley Woodside Colliery 1961'.

Redevelopment

The land became Shipley Country Park in 1976; part of the Woodside site was later a theme park, since demolished for housing.

Recorded claims

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

• The Miller Mundy family built the Nutbrook Canal from Shipley to the Erewash Canal, opened in 1796. ¹
• In 1880 more than a thousand people worked at the collieries, producing about 300,000 tons a year. ¹
• On 4 March 1857 an explosion of gas at A. M. Mundy's Shipley colliery killed eight. ^2,3
• The Woodside and Coppice pits closed in the 1960s, and Shipley Country Park opened in 1976. ¹
• The Woodside memorial gates read '1847 Shipley Woodside Colliery 1961'. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Shipley — Ilkeston and District Local History Society
2. (secondary) Shipley Colliery Explosion - Derby - 1857 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) Colliery Disaster: Shipley, 4 March 1857 — Durham Mining Museum
4. (observational) Shipley Woodside Colliery - 2 (Geograph 1987058) — Geograph

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