Harehills Colliery

[The Parksider]

rikj wrote: Looking at the 1854 map there are a collection of pits around there. Lee Pit, Park Pit and Bywater(?) Pit. Also, I think three just named as Coal Pits.Do you think it's likely that Harehills Colliery referred to a collection of pits, rather than just one site? That was the case with places like Waterloo Colliery. Sometimes even the upcast or downcast shaft had a seperate pit name.Maybe by the late 1800s technology had improved to the point where a colliery could manage with just one shaft. The limiting factors earlier were ventilation and the economics of dragging the coal back to the pit shaft. It quickly became cheaper to sink another shaft further along the seam. Darn it RikJ - I should have checked back before claiming your idea as my idea - 1,000 aplogies but the way NMRS list collieries but not individual pits - even substantial ones - seems to back YOUR theory up superbly.

[zip55]

As a kid I remember a slag heap near the top of Harehills Lane, on the same side as the Shaftsbury cinema. My cousins lived in the Nowells and we used to play up there. Would this have been related to the Harehills Colliery in this thread?    

[tippi]

Just out of interest. When my mum was growing up in Gipton in the early 1940's she said she was always warned not to play in the allotments (off Foundry Drive and where the new Oak Tree primary school is now built on) because older people would say it was dangerous because they could fall into the old mine workings underneath. As she's got older she feels this was just to scare kids from causing a nuisance in the allotments but reading this thread - could there be an element of truth? (she was told there was no buildings on there as it was unstable land - now there's the lovely new primary school!)

[jf]

The coal was transported to Wortley Fireclay works via the corporation tramway system, not the railway. This connected with the Wortley fireclay line at five ways roundabout. There were also deliveries to another pipeworks by Elland Road. There's quite a bit of detail on this unusual operation in one of the Leeds Transport Memories books (which I've summised in a thread previously I think). Both lines were electrified (Wortley and Harehills) though I think Harehills (Gipton Pit) originally had steam engines in operation before the tramway connection.I've photographed plans from this book and overlaid them on Google Earth, there are traces of the lines visible at both ends of the system.

[The Parksider]

zip55 wrote: As a kid I remember a slag heap near the top of Harehills Lane, on the same side as the Shaftsbury cinema. My cousins lived in the Nowells and we used to play up there. Would this have been related to the Harehills Colliery in this thread?     I think that wil be York Road colliery and ironworks. The heap is still there but lanscaped?

[The Parksider]

jf wrote: The coal was transported to Wortley Fireclay works via the corporation tramway system, not the railway. This connected with the Wortley fireclay line at five ways roundabout. There were also deliveries to another pipeworks by Elland Road. There's quite a bit of detail on this unusual operation in one of the Leeds Transport Memories books (which I've summised in a thread previously I think). Both lines were electrified (Wortley and Harehills) though I think Harehills (Gipton Pit) originally had steam engines in operation before the tramway connection.I've photographed plans from this book and overlaid them on Google Earth, there are traces of the lines visible at both ends of the system. Brilliant JF..........Which is the five ways roundabout? How would the product get from the colliery light railway staithes onto the tramway system - would it have to be loaded across do you think?Plus are you suggesting Gipton Pit maybe referred to as Harehills?Which thread is you summary on?thanks again....

[chameleon]

The Parksider wrote: zip55 wrote: As a kid I remember a slag heap near the top of Harehills Lane, on the same side as the Shaftsbury cinema. My cousins lived in the Nowells and we used to play up there. Would this have been related to the Harehills Colliery in this thread?     I think that wil be York Road colliery and ironworks. The heap is still there but lanscaped? zip - this is an image I posted in another thread to a similar question - I think you will make out what was the cinema and as Parksider suggests, the area behind which was the heap has been landscaped.    

[The Parksider]

chameleon wrote: I think you will make out what was the cinema and as Parksider suggests, the area behind which was the heap has been landscaped.     Chameleon et al - having found Potternewton Colliery on Stoney Rock Lane of all places it left me searching for Leeds most northernmost coal mine? Moortown Colliery.As I understand it Moortown is "Moor Allerton" and on the 1854 map indeed any of the 3 victorian maps on old-maps the only possible site I can find is King Lane just below stonegate road and above harrogate road.There were two quarries (Calliard or galliard it says under - the former is not in the dictionary, the latter is a fast french dance) in the area and a "Brick Field".I don't know what a Brick Field is exactly, but it seems there is some markings in the field as though the ground is a bit overturned etc. There are other brick fields in and about Leeds and I wonder if they are early sites for making brick?The mine for coal was sunk in 1874 20 years after the map. It could be that the brick business was overtaken by the bigger concerns and decided to sink their claypits further to get coal, although the seams must have been thin up there?. Anyway in the absence of a sniff anywhere else in north Leeds that's my best bet for Moortown Colliery.Calverley Colliery - now that's another mystery although there was Pudsey mines so not so out on a limb as I first thought.

[Si]

I think you're right about the Brick Fields, Parksider. There were two in what is now New Wortley. As for Calverley Colliery. My guess is that it would have been in the woods behind the church. There are some shallow depressions in the ground down there. At the other end of the woods, it's all millstone grit.

[jf]

The Parksider wrote: Which is the five ways roundabout? How would the product get from the colliery light railway staithes onto the tramway system - would it have to be loaded across do you think?Plus are you suggesting Gipton Pit maybe referred to as Harehills?Which thread is you summary on?thanks again.... Hi Parksider,The thread was this one:http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messag ... age=45This was more concerned with the Wortley end of things. I'd recommend having a look at the book - some of the other folks on here probably know the correct title/volume. I'm sure 'Gipton Pit' was the title given in the book.There's a brief reference to "Gipton Pit" here:http://www.leodis.org/display.aspx?reso ... 296023Five ways roundabout is here:http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=53.78838 ... src=gglThe line from the fireclay works came from the northwest (along the boundary line between the gardens of the houses, though I think they were built after the line closed) and crossed the tramway which from memory was running east-west through the middle of the junction, before heading south-east, bearing south, again along the boundary line between gardens, diagonally across the back of the cemetary, with a spur towards Busk Pit on Wortley Rec and the main part of the line continuing towards dragon bridge (again, along the line of gardens, look at the curve where the white cross is in the centre of this map: http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=53.78489 ... =0&src=ggl ), crossing the main railway at Dragon Bridge then running parallel to it towards the west.The line at the Gipton end (again from memory, not having a map) started at the colliery about here:http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=53.81535 ... src=msland ran westwards, along the line of the back garden boundaries of Amberton Road (follow the curve), then I think there is a track/footpath on the alignment:http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=53.81658 ... rc=mslThen ran behind the allotments and to the staithes by Harehills Lane. There are details of the connection to the tram system in the book, electric 'tippler cars' (a sort of self-propelled hopper wagon, mainly used for tramway maintenance) worked the line throughout.