Walking Together mining memorial on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Markham Colliery mining disaster.
Markham Colliery 50th year Memorial Service
On Sunday, 30th July 2023, a memorial service took place at St Johns the Baptist Church, Staveley, Derbyshire, to commemorate the 1973 cage disaster at Markham Colliery in North Derbyshire. The service was exactly fifty years to the day of the tragic mining disaster which claimed the lives of eighteen miners on 30th July 1973.
A committee of representatives from various organisations, in liasion with the local community, planned and organised the event including the National Committee for Safety of Manriding in Mineshafts, which was formed as a result of the 1973 Markham Colliery disaster. The event included a coalmining heritage display in the church hall and shuttle buses which ran to the nearby Markham Vale Business Park, the former site of Markham Colliery and now home to the Walking Together mining memorial. The one hundred and six sculptures each represent a miner killed in the Markham Colliery disasters of 1937, 1938 amd 1973.
2023 is also the thirtieth anniversary of the closure of Markham Colliery which finished production in July 1993. It was the last large colliery in the North Derbyshire coalfield.
Just prior to the start of Markham Colliery 50th memorial service at St John the Baptist Church, Staveley.
Programme for the Markham Colliery 50th memorial service
Coalmining heritage display as part of the Markham Colliery 50th memorial service event.
NCB photo following the 1973 Markham Colliery cage disaster.
Ireland Colliery Brass Band at the Markham Colliery 50th year memorial service
Coal mining heritage display by the Pleasley Pit Trust and Mine2Minds Education.
Some of the organisers of the Markham Colliery 50th year anniversary memorial service.
Block of coal and miners flame safety lamp at St John’s the Baptist Church, Staveley depicting the local link with coalmining.
Bishop of Oswestry (left) who conducted the Markham Colliery 50th year memorial service.
Wreath at one of the Walking Together mining scuptures at Markham Vale Business Park.
Tony (Chalkie) White (left) and Tony Hursthouse (right) volunteers from the preserved Pleasley Pit at the Walking Together mining memorial.
Mining memorial at Markham Vale to the three Markham Colliery disasters of 1937, 1938 and 1973.
Markham Colliery (1882 – 1993). Photo Credit: MuBu Miner collection