Harehills Colliery

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 14 Nov, 2009 6:44 pm

Nice to have a small trip to the remains of "harehills Colliery" today which I believe was the Gipton Pit which sold their coal out of a depot in Harehills below Hovingham avenue, which advertised as Harehills Colliery in their price list. Also popped in the Oakwood Library to check a reference kindly supplied......There is now major construction works on the colliery site, but as the old spoil heaps were removed you can only see traces of the black shale that made up most of the spoil appearing.To the Harehills end and you can trace sone of the line and some of the colliery road that ran together, as has been said before.In the reference books it states that the line stopped short of Harehills Lane and when they wanted to link the line to the tramway system, there were hard negociations on a short length of land between the depot and the Lane. that is still there gated at both ends.The purpose as has been said before was to send materials from Gipton to the ironworks and fireclay works across Leeds in Wortley and Farnley. The reference book refers to excellent "black bed ironstone" and excellent "better bed firecaly" so Gipton mined great quantities of iron, fireclay and coal.The shipments were all made on a night after the trams stopped and the records run only from 1914 to 1917 so for some reason it didn't seem to be a long lasting idea, although the pit was coming to it's end so maybe they mined the iron and clay out?The best bit of the research was the Hogg family and as always excuse me if you have heard this before. They lived on Coldcotes Circus and when there was a miners strike in the early fifties, the lads dug down in their garden (or possibly on adjacent land) and found the top coal seam, the "crow coal" and started to dig it out, bag it up and sell it!!!!I like that!!

grumpytramp · Post by **grumpytramp** » Fri 15 Feb, 2013 9:25 am

Riponian wrote: Of those searching for the Moortown Colliery, on the BGS website there are a large number of boreholes on Falkland Rise on their mapping link. I guess that it's currently under the car park. The searching is over!Moortown Colliery was located between Allerton Grove and Street Lane [see extract from OS 1:2500 from 1908] but wasn't a colliery but a shaft associated with a clay pit/brickworksThe question will be asked why would have been listed as a colliery?The simple answer is that it came under the jurisidiction of the Coal Mines Inspection Act 1850 and subsequent legislation/regulation as it was mining stratified minerals (clay, stratified ironstone, ganister etc mines).

Riponian · Post by **Riponian** » Fri 15 Feb, 2013 12:48 pm

That certainly clears things up, though the scale of the clay pit only means they didn't work it for long. My sources were wrong it seems, although I did know that there's certainly a lot of clay up there, but it's a long way off the beaten track for brickmaking.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Fri 15 Feb, 2013 3:38 pm

grumpytramp wrote: Riponian wrote: Of those searching for the Moortown Colliery, on the BGS website there are a large number of boreholes on Falkland Rise on their mapping link. I guess that it's currently under the car park. The searching is over!Moortown Colliery was located between Allerton Grove and Street Lane [see extract from OS 1:2500 from 1908] but wasn't a colliery but a shaft associated with a clay pit/brickworksThe question will be asked why would have been listed as a colliery?The simple answer is that it came under the jurisidiction of the Coal Mines Inspection Act 1850 and subsequent legislation/regulation as it was mining stratified minerals (clay, stratified ironstone, ganister etc mines). Absolutely made up again here!!! Nice one GT.The site remains unbuilt on through the various decades of the OS maps until relatively recently they built houses on it. I assume building techniques for foundation work made this tenable.I have been involved in the odd construction project where a ground survey has revealed shallow coal workings, especially one at Beeston opposite the old white hart where they pumped in concrete and drove piles to secure the ground

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Fri 15 Feb, 2013 3:57 pm

Riponian wrote: That certainly clears things up, though the scale of the clay pit only means they didn't work it for long. My sources were wrong it seems, although I did know that there's certainly a lot of clay up there, but it's a long way off the beaten track for brickmaking. My guess was the "Brick Field" you can find on the 1850 OS map on the left of King Lane as it climbs to stonegate road. Not too far off.The "Colliery" as we can see has a shaft and also a clay "pit" so I really don't know how it works (GT may explain). As far as I know the fireclay is hard stone and needs crushing (you can find it in abundance at the West Yorks Mine in Austhorpe) then I assume mixing with water and forming bricks you then bake.Some clay pits were formed by open casting as per GT's earkier references to pictures of large holes in Hunslet and Burmantofts, so remains could be a processing pit? or could be opencasting after which they had to sink a shaft?.Your idea it was not worked for long would tie in with the fact that around the area you can't find too many Mid-Victorian brick built buildings. I assume the clay was for making bricks? And locally too?If so the oldest brick housing may be that down at chapel allerton, but I'm going to have a good look round and on maps to see where these bricks ended up.

Brunel · Post by **Brunel** » Sat 16 Feb, 2013 12:09 pm

Several years ago, the house at the jnc. of Allerton Grove/ Allerton Ave.had extensive work done to the foundations, concrete pumping etc.http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=43 ... =Y&Z=106Of course might not be connected to anything mining.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 16 Feb, 2013 12:29 pm

Brunel wrote: Several years ago, the house at the jnc. of Allerton Grove/ Allerton Ave.had extensive work done to the foundations, concrete pumping etc.http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=43 ... =Y&Z=106Of course might not be connected to anything mining. That's interesting (as all your posts are). The the position of the house is a distance from the shaft entrance, that's a lot of fireclay to dig through to get over there.It's so interesting that every pit is a coal pit and virtually no pits are fireclay or ironstone pits by name. In the case of this pit did they dig out both fireclay and coal? did they dig it as a bell pit in which it won't have reached that point, or did they prop it up with timbers and dig away from the shaft, could you stand up down there or were they on hands and knees every day?As with Barfly's discovered Rawdon shaft just locating the entrance opens up a fascination for what was down there and how did it work up top?

Brunel · Post by **Brunel** » Sat 16 Feb, 2013 1:16 pm

Don't think you could locate the shaft today, probably under the flats....or perhaps in the playing fields.http://goo.gl/maps/lQ42Z

liits · Post by **liits** » Sat 16 Feb, 2013 6:07 pm

Brunel wrote: Don't think you could locate the shaft today, probably under the flats....or perhaps in the playing fields. or click the red X

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 16 Feb, 2013 6:36 pm

liits wrote: Brunel wrote: Don't think you could locate the shaft today, probably under the flats....or perhaps in the playing fields. or click the red X Oh that is brilliant.The shaft head is on the first floor of the flats!!