Thurcroft Colliery was a coal mine situated in the village of

Thurcroft Thurcroft is a village and civil parish situated south-east of Rotherham in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. From 1902 to 1991, it was a mining community. It has a population of 5,296, increasing to 6,900 at ...

, near

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

, England. In 1902, the Rother Vale Colliery Company leased the rights to work coal from below the Thurcroft Estates which were owned by Messrs. Marrian (of Sharrow Hall, Sheffield) and Binns, but it was not until 7 years later that they began sinking a shaft. Problems were encountered within a year when they found water which needed to be pumped from the workings and caused a delay in reaching the coal seam. The

Barnsley seam The coal seams worked in the South Yorkshire Coalfield lie mainly in the middle coal measures within what is now formally referred to as the Pennine Coal Measures Group. These are a series of mudstones, shales, sandstones, and coal seams laid do ...

, which is of good quality coal had been thrown out of its normal alignment and its expected position by a

geological fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

which was not discovered until the shaft was sunk. Delays meant that no coal was produced until 1913. From 1913, the company began to build housing for the miners, designed by Rotherham architect James Knight. The colliery was nationalized in 1947, becoming part of the National Coal Board. It was closed on 6 December 1991.

References

* Details from Rother Vale Colliery Co., paperwork. {{coord, 53.4019, -1.2499, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title 1909 establishments in England 1991 disestablishments in England Coal mines in Rotherham Coal mines in South Yorkshire Underground mines in England Thurcroft