Open questions: South Yorkshire

Where sources disagree, MineArchive keeps both accounts rather than picking one; where a fact could not be settled, the record says so. 54 such claims on 32 records. All regions.

Barnsley Main Colliery

• The Dearne heritage account instead says Barnsley Main originated as the Oaks Colliery, sunk west of Oaks Lane at Stairfoot in 1824, whose shafts were infilled after the 1866 explosions and replaced by new shafts at Ardsley opening as the New Oaks Colliery in 1870. (disputed)
• The Dearne heritage account says a 25 million pound refurbishment reopened the colliery in the 1970s and that the surviving headgear and two-storey brick engine house date from that work; the list entry dates them to about 1900 and 1956 and describes the 1970s use as man-riding, with the coal wound at Barrow Colliery. (disputed)
• The list entry says 361 miners and 27 rescuers died in the 1866 explosions at the Oaks; the Dearne heritage account gives 383 killed; this archive's own disaster record gives 361 as the official total and states that figure already includes 27 colliery employees and 23 volunteer rescuers. (disputed)

Birley Collieries

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Birley' (catalogue 5312, Silkstone, dated 1908); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Brodsworth Colliery

• The Barnsley seam, up to 9 feet thick, was reached in 1907. Wikipedia gives the depth as 595 yards; the Northern Mine Research Society gives 541 metres — the two figures are close but not identical and are recorded here as separate accounts rather than reconciled. (disputed)

Bullhouse Colliery

• One account of the water drift gives 1915 as the year the mine was abandoned; the caption to the remediation scheme photograph gives 1918 for the closure of the old Bullhouse working. Neither sits easily with the Lists of Mines returns showing the colliery at work in 1947 and 1954. (disputed)

Darfield Main Colliery

• Sinking started in 1860; the colliery opened in 1860. (disputed)
• Mitchell Main Colliery Company Ltd took over Darfield Main in 1902 (the history site marks an 1896 date as needing authentication). (uncertain)

Darley Main Colliery

• Opened in 1849. (disputed)

Denaby Main Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Denaby Main' (catalogue M781, Barnsley, dated 1871); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

East Gawber Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Gawber' (catalogue 8094, Barnsley, dated 1925); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Elsecar Colliery

• Henry Ford twice tried to buy the engine to take it to America and was refused by Earl Fitzwilliam. (uncertain)
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Elsecar' (catalogue NEST36, Spoil Tip, dated 1987); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Ferrymoor Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Ferrymoor Colliery' (catalogue SFE318, Surface Electrical Plan, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Handsworth Colliery

• NMRS records the pit as High Hazels No. 2 in 1947, and High Hazels No. 3 Pit, sunk in 1901, as renamed Handsworth from 1948 to 1966. (uncertain)

Harry Crofts Colliery

• The colliery closed in 1930. (disputed)
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Harrycrofts Colliery' (catalogue SFE189, Surface, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Hickleton Main Colliery

• Accounts differ: the colliery is described as working from 1892 to 1988, while Goldthorpe and Hickleton were merged into one unit from 1 January 1986 and production ceased on 4 February 1994. (disputed)

High Hazels Colliery

• The colliery became part of the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947. (disputed)

Hoyland Silkstone Colliery

• The colliery closed about 1950, or in the 1950s. (disputed)

Lundhill Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Lundhill' (catalogue 3280, Abdy, Winter,Furnace, dated 1895); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Maltby Colliery

• An explosion in August 1911 killed three colliers. (uncertain)

Mitchell Main Colliery

• The Barnsley seam was reached in 1873 at 307 yards. (disputed)

Mount Osborne Colliery

• Worked from 1854 to 1883. (disputed)
• Closed about 1894. (disputed)

New Stubbin Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Stubbin' (catalogue NE563, Whinmoor, dated 1965); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

North Gawber Colliery

• 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)
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Gawber' (catalogue 8094, Barnsley, dated 1925); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Nunnery Colliery

• Wikipedia and Grace's Guide both date the start of mining on the Nunnery site to 1868; the Northern Mine Research Society's account of the 1923 accident says the colliery had been winding coal since 1866. (disputed)
• Forum contributors reported in November 2020 that the capped Nunnery shaft stands inside a conifer-screened enclosure opposite Makro on Parkway Avenue, one of them confirming it from having worked at the depot built over it. (uncertain)

Rockingham Colliery

• Two shafts 355 yards deep wound coal from the Flockton at 169 yards and from near the Thorncliffe at 301 yards; a shaft at Hoyland Silkstone, 508 yards deep, was a service shaft. (disputed)
• When first sunk in 1874–5 the colliery had two shafts 50 yards apart, the No. 1 South downcast of 16 feet diameter and the No. 2 North upcast of 15 feet, both 345 yards deep to the Silkstone seam. (disputed)

Roundwood Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Roundwood' (catalogue 7501, Lindsay (Park), dated 1922); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Silverwood Colliery

• The Barnsley seam depth is given as 745 yards (heritage group), 740 yards (Shane Phillips collection) and 765 yards (NCB, 1967). (disputed)
• Grace's Guide gives the closure as 1992, citing Wikipedia; the current Wikipedia article and other sources give 1994. (disputed)

Swaithe Main Colliery

• The drawing shaft was 230 yards deep. (disputed)
• The downcast and drawing shaft was sunk to 320 yards. (disputed)

Thurcroft Colliery

• The Rother Vale Colliery Company leased the coal under the Thurcroft estates in 1902 but did not begin sinking a shaft until seven years later. (uncertain)
• Water met within a year of starting, and a fault that had displaced the Barnsley seam and was not discovered until the shaft was sunk, meant no coal was produced until 1913. (uncertain)
• From 1913 the company built housing for the miners, designed by the Rotherham architect James Knight. (uncertain)
• The colliery closed on 6 December 1991. (uncertain)

Warren Vale Colliery

• Wikipedia says sinking began in the late 1840s with production from the end of 1850; AroundTown (2024) says the colliery was sunk in 1840. (disputed)
• The inquest jury found that 52 men and boys were killed in the explosion of 20 December 1851; Wikipedia and AroundTown give 51, 24 of them aged 16 or under. (disputed)
• AroundTown places the explosion of November 1874 that killed 23 at Warren Vale, in the Barnsley seam at 127 yards; NMRS records the same event as the Rawmarsh Colliery explosion, worked by the Charlesworths. (uncertain)

Wharncliffe Wood Ganister Mines

• A gravity tramline carried crushed ganister down from the mines to the Great Central main line, opened in 1845, for transport to the fire-brick works. (uncertain)
• Total ganister output from the valley was recorded at around 40,000 tons in 1908. (uncertain)
• The mines were driven as roughly horizontal passages of horse-shoe section, linked by stone-lined tramways contouring the hillside to a gravity incline down to the railway. (uncertain)
• Recording work between 2017 and 2023 found most entrances along the tramway sealed or blasted shut and the lower workings seasonally flooded. (uncertain)
• Steetley took over the Oughtibridge works in 1947; by the 1980s Sheffield Refractories Ltd held the northern part of the site, the southern half having been given over to housing. (uncertain)

Wombwell Main Colliery

• Sinking started in 1852. (disputed)
• Industrial development at Wombwell commenced with the opening of Wombwell Main Colliery in 1855. (disputed)

Woolley Colliery

• A £40 million NCB investment including a West Side coal preparation plant was announced in 1982, and a fire destroyed part of it in 1983, causing £8 million of damage. (uncertain)

Yorkshire Main Colliery

• In 1984 the mine was recorded as making a profit of £4.5 million. (disputed)
• By the mid-1980s Yorkshire Main was losing money, and after the 1984-85 strike it struggled to raise output. (disputed)