OpenTube

End of an Era - Mining History in Leeds with Michael Meadowcroft

Leeds Civic Trust

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Michael Meadowcroft's illustrated talk will trace the chequered history of an industry that was once so crucial to the development of the city.
In 1935 almost 4,000 Leeds men were employed in mining; today it is just a handful. The city has a long history of coal mining but the last deep mine, Allerton Bywater, closed in March 1992.

Many of us have enjoyed Michael Meadowcroft's live talks during Heritage Open Days in the past. This new illustrated lecture will be delivered 'live' online with an opportunity for comments and questions at the end.

4 Comments

@Roscoe.P.Coldchain 5 years ago

Was born just at the side of the allerton pit in 71, had fond memories of the village 👍

@EdwardAveyard 5 years ago

The map at 8:30 seems to be before the Selby closures. By the time of the 1984-5 strike, Lofthouse, Newmarket, Rothwell, Peckfield, Walton, Park Hill and Manor had all gone. Their workers had the option of moving to the Selby Coalfield, which meant that there wasn't much agitation over these closures.

@railwayvideos 6 years ago (edited)

An excellent lecture. Just a couple of clarifications. A "drift" mine was based around an inclined tunnel which went from the surface to the seam/s, as a opposed to a shaft which went down vertically. Somebody may correct me but I'm fairly certain the mine closest to Temple Newsam house was based around two shafts. It was called Temple Pit. Michael appears to be referring to "opencast" working which started during the Second World War and involved extraction of coal from shallow seams near the surface after the topsoil had been removed. These opencast working went on between Knostrop and Methley for a long period after the war in various locations close to the River Aire, most notably at St. Aiden's near Swillington. There were also drifts at Fanny Pit at Rothwell and Primrose Pit at Swillington. There was one error in a slide. It was Water Haigh colliery at Woodlesford not Waterloo Haigh which closed in 1970. Much of the spruce for the pit props was imported from the Baltic countries via the ports at Goole and Hull. Also whilst I appreciate that many of the mines shown were technically in the Leeds Metropolitan Borough area but that was only created in 1973 (by a Tory government). For much of the life of the industry they came under other local authorities within the West Riding and had their own local governments many of which were run by miners elected as councillors. Middleton for instance was in Rothwell up until the 1920s. Similarly the homes of William Pickard at Kippax and Jim Bullock near Swillington were in Tadcaster Rural District. The book Michael was referring to is the Yorkshire Coalfield by Edward Downes. There's more about the Woodlesford/Rothwell are here: https://newwoodlesford.xyz/water-haigh-colliery/ Howard Benson