The Long Lost Hidden Coal Mines of Barnsley by Dave Cherry

The Barnsley singer and social historian Dave Cherry explores the long, forgotten, coal mines of Barnsley.
Barnsley was once the centre of the coal industry but now all the collieries are closed.
Here Dave concentrates on the early mines of the nineteenth century.
He finds where the rich coal seams outcropped and studies the way the early pits mined coal and where the collieries were.
He meets mining historian Steve Wyatt who has made a study of the old pits and finds Victorian mines in very unusual places--in an Asda car park, in front of a 'posh' house and in a council estate.
The music is 'The Old club Trip Overture' ©davecherry2004

[@keepontreking3661]

Thankyou for this insite to our forgotten history which some,many won't believe.

[@Mike-vj3uk]

This is a blast from the past Dave, Mick Yule

[@christinecameron7369]

Big thank you to you Dave for putting these videos together, I'm part of the group at Hemingfield Colliery and all of us trying to preserve the coal mining heritage of Barnsley, we really appreciate what you are doing.

[@DaveCherry]

Oh thanks for your kind comments Christine. Its going mad on social media. 4157 views on Old Pictures of Barnsley site on first day yesterday. I was the speaker at the Holiday Inn last night for the Rotary Club and showed this film. The intention is to raise a plaque on the site of the Norcroft pit. It is astonishing how this first shaft disaster with 8 year old kids has been forgotton. They are very interested and more showings are coming up. Do you have meetings Christine? Will come and meet you all. Come through on Facebook. Have more to tell you. Cheers Dave.

[@alexpusey6732]

hi x

[@SJM_Media]

Another great video Dave. I'm not from a mining family but love local history.

[@stevenvamplew7145]

barnsley was built on coal and my dad became a deputy of grimethorpe colliery, he got no medals or blessingesfrom anyone but he was a hero to me

[@meggymoo1010]

My father died aged 24 in 1970, killed in the pit.

[@sexygirlove20]

thanks for the video... i didnt know there were so many small mines in the area... i was born in mexborough... dad was a miner at cadeby colliery and gdad was at denaby main... i live in australia and have worked as an u/g miner since 1981... my son is a miner and my brother is a miner also

[@stephensmith799]

Thanks for making and posting. I am wracking my brain for the name of the Barnsley pit near my Great Auntie Marjorie Smith's house. We visited her on holiday at a time I leved on a farm in Wales and so found a landscape with a pit to be fascinating. We sat on a grassy bank on the edge of a big depression in open ground which was a third full with water so black it was impossible to see anything below the surface at all... black as pitch it was..... watching this pit against the late afternoon sun. I thought it was magical and far better thna a farm to look at (age seven years). It makes you wonder what remains of the headings below ground now and the silence of those spaces save for water and maybe the groan of the ground settling evey now and aagain.

[@kenmidgley6638]

Thanks Dave. Very informative. Being a forth generation ex miner . Brought up in New Lodge in 60s played many happy hours around that ventilation shaft of east gawber colliery as kids we only knew it as Red Building!!! Me dad Henry charlesworth Midgley. Worked at Barnsley main. Cortonwood. Barrow. Church Lane. (Dodworth), me brother Arnie was deputy at Redbrook. Whilst my other brother Roy worked at old Carlton and various other pits in Barnsley area,

[@kenreeve6549]

cheers from Ackworth Dave well done

[@whssy]

Just discovered this channel today. Subbed immediately and have a lot to watch I can see. Thanks for making all these Dave. Grandson of a miner who lived in Stairfoot but worked in a couple of the other local pits.

[@kane211]

Thanks again for the great video and awesome history

[@DaveCherry]

Oh thank you Kane. It's nice to be appreciated. You cannot believe how much work goes into it. There is only me and John Timmis and it is hard graft. I am starting on PART TWO which will follow the pits in Dodworth and Silkstone. Cheers DC.

[@chee5935]

Absolutely fabulous video!! I was born in Barnsley but we moved to Canada when I was young. My dad and all of his brothers were coal miners - my dad worked at Barnsley Main. Shame thou...they all died of emphysema. All of my relations going back to the 1500's are from Worsborough Dale. As well, my mom's brother owned the Cutting Edge way back in the 60's..it used to be a farm. I loved the presentation on the old mine shafts. I totally recognize the scenery on the driving trip. My uncle lived by the Canal :) I went to school in Canada and became a Mining Technologist. I guess mining is in my blood :) As well, you can take the girl out of Barnsley, but you can't take Barnsley out of the girl. Thanks so much for the video - my dad would have loved it. Chez PS. My dad lived in Stairfoot as a child. He loved the Stairfoot Roundabout song.

[@DaveCherry]

Oh that's brill Chez. You may like this new film. Nearly 6000 views on OLD PICTURES OF BARNSLEY in just 2 days. click link below. Am getting comments from all over the world. There is a part two as well on the mines. I got a lad with a drone camera to help.Thanks for your kind words. Come through on facebook. May remember your dad. Bill Harber. The lengendary Barnsley bobby. A tribute film by Dave Cherry kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGqVnWuPZ8eJoLs CheersDave Cherry

[@DaveCherry]

Ta Chee

[@coalessencejewellery4952]

Brilliant video Dave, thoroughly enjoyed it.

[@gordonmckenzie926]

Fascinating, thanks.

[@timblacklock1104]

Thanks for putting together this very interesting film, keep up the great work and we are looking forward to seeing part two!

[@DaveCherry]

Oh cheers for that Tim. I have started PART 2. Had some good luck--got some drone footage--and am tracing a MP's forefather who got killed at a Cawthorne pit called Norcroft in 1821 when he was just 8. Have also got Brian Elliot the author on board --he knows some right stuff. Take care--Dave

[@davidclark3603]

That was really good that.

Hey, good work

[@bobbuilder1896]

Thanks Dave for all your hard work. Love this video. My Dad was a miner all his working life at Dearne Valley but you wouldn't get me down a mine for all the tea in China. I have great respect for all miners and this information adds to that. It is really interesting and I look forward to part two. All the best. Tony

[@DaveCherry]

Tony Part Two is on line and have now started Part Three-be 2 or 3 weeks. Cheers Dave

[@christinespencer406]

Love your work marra

[@ZedTee190]

Interesting video. I live about 4 mins walk from where you were born! Anyway, a few years back, the Wosbro' Asda carpark 'buckled'. It was like the ski piste run! I wondered why it happened. After watching this video I believe it may be related to the old mine under the car park - which I never knew was there.

[@DaveCherry]

Yes you are correct, however those were shafts down to the Barnsley 8 foot coal seam which was roughly 50 or so yards down but they always left a pillar around the shaft. in other words it was not mined. My guess being brought up in the area is the numerous water channels that run down the valley underground. From the top of Mount Vernon there are loads of water course running down there-I may be wrong but thanks for your interest -Dave Cherry

[@ZedTee190]

@@DaveCherry Thanks! I forgot to ask - did you go to Kirk Balk school in Hoyland? There was a lad there with the same surname as you, lived in Elsecar. Bit of a joker if memory serves!

[@DaveCherry]

no White Cross-no relations up there- @@ZedTee190

[@GrahamWathey]

very interesting Dave, thanks for taking the time to post this. The house at the back of the park was where Ian Porter lived. He was owner of Wilson and Longbottoms when I worked there and ex Master Cutler.

[@DaveCherry]

Oh brill Graham. I knocked at the door 2 or 3 times --as I said on the film-but since then-Christmas- have noticed the house has been sold. Apparently there is a shaft in the back somewhere. Also somebody else has said the muckstack that was opposite did not belong to that pit. The records are very sketchy-pre 1860 they are non existant. Cheers DC

[@garyeaton7271]

Brilliant

[@johnorchard4]

Cudworth had Bell pits, and the Cudworth seam was regarded as the highest quality. So, when they say that Cudworth was a mining village without a pit, they'd be wrong! It is probably no coincidence that it was a monk who first developed a pump system to remove water from coal mines (OK, not very deep pits). That monk was a local guy and was around many centuries ago. I found that little gem in the library at the National Coal Mining Museum.

[@steveatkinson1661]

Lost my dad 1953 I was 3 months old Kirby He was a blaster apparently

[@christinespencer406]

Dead n forgotten not in our hearts lest we forget thanks for keeping the history going the thing that pissing me off there's a fortune under your feet

[@tonymaries1652]

Fascinating video. I live in Mid Somerset and last weekend I went for a walk to find the remains of some of the old pits in the area where I live. Old maps show at least five within a mile. Old Rock, New Rock, Nettlebridge, Strap, Moorewood. Hardly a trace of any of them remains above ground. A dense thicket defends the remains of the shaft at Moorewood. An inclined plane which used to carry coal up from Moorewood to sidings at the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway is now a steep and narrow country lane. Coal is believed to have been mined in the area since Roman times. Now you must be thinking this must be a bit of a wind-up. It is not! William Smith, the engineer now acknowledged as the father of English Geology lived near Bath, and when some lucky landowners at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution found they had vast seams of coal under their estates he had an endless stream of surveying work. Much of it was futile. He was a scrupulously honest man who told countless landed gentry in the Home Counties there was absolutely no chance that they would make a fortune from sinking mine shafts on their land. Somerset's coal mines were never fantastically profitable. The seams were thin and the coal poor in quality. Many of the smaller pits were only active in the winter, and the workers left the pits to work on the farms in the summer. I once knew a former miner who moved to the area from West Durham when the pits there started closing down. Within ten years most of the pits in Somerset were closing too. However he was by then near retirement so he was happy to hang on for a payoff when his turn came.

[@DaveCherry]

Thanks for your kind comments Tony. I am now on with a new film about 3 colliery disasters in the 19 century in the next village Worsbrough Dale. 300 were killed. I get a lot of help from people with archive maps and drone footage. I have just finished a new film about a 1942 plane crash here that just missed the terraced houses called THE UNSUNG HERO OF BARNSLEY. The trailer is on here and it is being premiered at a local club on Friday on two large screens-all for the local hospice. Did you know that film you have commented on has two follow up parts-2 and 3-all on here-and they all have a lot of views as well as being on other sites. I also have a web site with links to all my films. Cheers-Dave Cherry

[@simoningram8081]

Chuffin brilliant

[@Yorkpudding]

Cheers Dave Cherry. I will use this KZbin video instead of the Facebook link. Ta sorry it has taken so long

[@DaveCherry]

top man george

[@martking80]

Good video, my grandad was one of 18 in 1957 barnburgh main disaster,

[@chee5935]

Hi there...when I went back to the UK in 89..my uncle took me to Barnburgh colliery....the only person there was a security guard. He let me have a look around. He gave me an ol deputy stick, two maintenance manuals and some miners tags (Barnburgh Colliery). I would be more than happy to give them to you :) My dad was a miner as well, but he was not at Barnburgh.

[@leathandrubb]

Hi there Dave. which golf club has the pit shafts in it and also where was the shaft in that mans back yard

[@DaveCherry]

Wombwell Golf Club has the capped over Lundhill shafts and it is De Lacey Drive in Worsbrough Bridge that has the old Cupola shaft in the back yard. Thanks for your interest Dave Cherry

[@bfc-lv3zf]

I live near barnsley main

[@stephensmith799]

A twenty foot seam!!!

[@chriscars3578]

All down to the tories these great mines r gone I worked in Notts but didn’t work in the strike

[@bfc-lv3zf]

I went to 2018 oaks disaster momorial

[@alexdixon9069]

Oh Aye, thats a rate video cocker, i'm going up t' me nans later she'll love this!!!!

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

Coal mining should have been phased out during the 1960s.

[@efccb3669]

Love that video I'm from St Helens and that coal we had built our towns. Sad thing is there is hundreds of years of it still under our feet. Mark my words in the future probably long after I'm dead and all this green agenda stuff is gone they will mine again.

[@JamesRichards-mj9kw]

Coal mining would have ended anyway due to Labour's Climate Change Act.

[@24934637]

Barnsley....The town that inspired the film 'Wrong Turn'.

[@DaveCherry]

Cannot see your name but I quote Oscar Wilde-“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”

[@dustyobrien7456]

Learn somethings about your home town