Figure 1: Recording memories of Silverhill Colliery at the Mine-craft the Prequel photo workshop at Teversal Trails Visitors Centre, 24th February 2024.
Silverhill Colliery: A Mine-craft the Prequel project case study
Silverhill Colliery in the Nottinghamshire coalfield was one of the case-studies for the Mine-craft the Prequel coalmining heritage project. It closed officially in March 1993, however coal production finished in October 1992 at the start of the 1992 to 1994 Coal Crisis. It was the last deep coalmining around the town of Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, which at one time had four collieries in its hinterland.
Figure 2: Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd collieries – 1935 Colliery Year Book
Silverhill Colliery was sunk in 1875 by the Stanton Iron Company from Ilkeston, Derbyshire and evolved from the old Coopers shaft from a decade earlier. Other nearby Stanton Company collieries were at Teversal, known locally as Butcherwood, and Pleasley. Bilsthorpe Colliery in the Dukeries region of Nottinghamshire was sunk by the Stanton Company between 1925 and 1927.
Figure 3: Silverhill Colliery in the 1980’s. Photo Credit – Kirkby Heritage Centre
Figure 4: 1950’s map showing collieries around Stanton Hill, Nottinghamshire. Photo Credit – 1952 Guide to the Coalfields
The colliery was located on the edge of the shallower exposed coalfield, which ran up the Derbyshire / Nottinghamshire border. The mining community of Stanton Hill evolved nearby in the 1880’s. In nationalisation it was placed in the National Coal Board (NCB) East Midlands No.4 Area from 1947 to 1967, the NCB North Nottinghamshire Area from 1967 to 1986 and British Coal Corporation, Nottinghamshire Area from 1986 to 1992.
Figure 5: Solarium at Silverhill Colliery circa late 1940’s. Photo Credit: Coal Authority
Silverhill solarium
Original supporting information from the Public Records Office (PRO) Coal 80 archive (Ref PRO COAL 80-907-103935_1.TIF) gives details of it being a solarium at Silverhill Colliery, Nottinghamshire and is undated (Fig. 5).
New information / metadata
In the late 1930’s, a solarium was installed by the Stanton Iron Company. Its aim was to deal with the Vitamin D deficiency often suffered by coalminers in the winter months, caused by a prolonged lack of exposure to daylight. Jokingly, some miners used to say at that time of the year they spent more time in the dark than mushrooms and were fed the same ingredients!
Silverhill miners used the facility at the end of their shift. After showering in the Pit Head Baths (PHB), they would put their shorts on and go for a hours session in the solarium. In the early 1950’s, the NCB discontinued the solarium experiment and the colliery medical centre was built in its place.
Source: Oral testimony by David Reason (ex Silverhill coalminer) and Bob Bradley (former colliery surveyor at Teversal Colliery) at Teversal Trails Visitors Centre on 27th March 2024.
Figure 6: Underground diesel loco and trainees at Silverhill Colliery in the 1950’s. Photo Credit – Coal Authority
Silverhill Underground Loco and man-riding cars
Original supporting information about this photo (Ref: PRO COAL80_907_4903983_49.TIF) states that it is ‘men about to board an underground manrider’.
New Information / metadata
On closer inspection, it can be seen that it is young mining trainees boarding the underground man-riding train. At some collieries these types of trains were known as ‘Paddy’s’. At the time of the photo in the early 1950’s, it transported the NCB trainees to a training coalface in the Deep Hard seam and additionally took miners to 30’s and 35’s working coalfaces. The underground loco, named ‘Cock of the North’, was built by Ruston and Hornsby Ltd at Lincoln who specialised in building diesel engines of all types.
Information supplied via oral testimony by David Reason (ex Silverhill coalminer) and Bob Bradley (former colliery surveyor at Teversal Colliery) at Teversal Trails Visitors Centre on 27th March 2024.
Figure 7: Silverhill miners and management celebrating breaking a coalface production record in January 1970. Photo Credit: Chad newspaper
Silverhill Coalface Record Breakers 1970
Image from the Chad newspaper collection, the regional newspaper for Mansfield and District in Nottinghamshire. It shows miners and management at Silverhill Colliery celebrating a coalface weekly record output of 7,033 tons from 19s coalface in the Low Main seam for w/e 17th January 1970. Within two decades the weekly coalface production record would be beaten four-fold to over 30,000 tonnes of coal.
Images showing members of the workforce always proved popular at Mine-craft the Prequel workshop events and information for Fig 7 was supplied by former Silverhill miner, Peter Thompson and Bob Bradley, former Colliery Surveyor at nearby Teversal Colliery.
Figure 8: Map showing coalface workings in the Low Main seam at Silverhill Colliery including 19’s. Not the proximity of working from other local collieries in both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to the Silverhill workings. Photo Credit: Bob Bradley
Figure 9: Silverhill miners celebrate the production record in December 1988. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper
Silverhill Coalface Record Breakers 1988
In December 1988, a Blackshale longwall coalface, 15’s, advanced 60 yards (55 metres) in one week and produced a European record for thin seam coalmining of 30,529 tonnes of coal. The coalface machine was an Anderson-Strathclyde 270 horse-power floor mounted trepanner (Fig 10).
Figure 10: Floor mounted Trepanner on the recording breaking 15’s coalface at Silverhill Colliery in 1988.
New colliery records established at Silverhill that week were;
Weekly Output – 34,219 tonnes
Overall Tonnes per Manshift (OMS) – 7.51 tonnes
Total coalface OMS – 26.18 tonnes
Coalface output – 30,529 tonnes
Coalface OMS – 73.21 tonnes
Tonnes per machine shift – 2,038 tonnes
Numbers of shears – 106.15 strips
Distance coalface machine travelled: 18 miles.
Figure 11: The Silverhill Star, colliery magazine, January 1989.
To commemorate this special achievement, a special colliery publication, ‘The Silverhill Star’, was published, and copies were distributed to the colliery workforce (Fig. 11). A digital copy was made available to the Mine-craft the Prequel project.
Information from the Healey Hero website, ‘A Comprehensive History of Mining in the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire Coalfields in Chronological Order’, 1993, p.5 by Dr Robert Bradley.
Figure 12: One of the Silverhill Bag Artist’s cartoons from December 1985.
The Silverhill Bag Artist
The British coalmining industry was known for its unique dry and quick-witted humour. One aspect of this which came to the fore as part of the Mine-craft the Prequel project, were the cartoons of the Silverhill miner, Adrian Hickling, aka The Bag Artist.
On hearing of a tale of misfortune by a certain member of NCB / British Coal management, a cartoon would be quickly drawn on a stone-dust bag, hence the nickname, the Bag Artist. This member of the Silverhill colliery management was known as saying that although he was of relatively small statue, when underground he was ten-foot tall! Hence, most of the bag artist’s cartoons feature a ten-foot measurement mark on them!
Short video about the Silverhill Bag Artist. (2 mins. 48 secs)
Figure 13: Silverhill miners in the pit canteen hearing of the closure of the colliery – 13th October 1992. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper
Silverhill Colliery closure
Silverhill Colliery officially closed in March 1993, after 117 years. Production ceased in mid-October 1992 at the start of what became known as the Coal Crisis which occurred from mid October 1992 to the end March 1994. On 13th October 1992, Michael Hestletine MP, President of the Board of Trade, announced the closure of 31 of the remaining 50 British collieries still in production at the time. This followed the impending collapse of markets for power station coal following the privatisation of state owned Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the run up to re-privatisation of what was left of the deep British coalmining industry. Silverhill was one of ten collieries nationwide that went into a special review.
Alan Batterham, who worked at Teversal and Silverhill collieries, recalled a story from the time of the Coal Crisis, involving the Conservative coal rebel MP’s which included Bill Cash, Elizabeth Peacock and Winston Churchill Jnr, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill
Short video about Silverhill Colliery at the start of the Coal Crisis in October 1992 (1 min. 57 secs)
Figure 14: Roy Lynk back on the pit surface, following his six day underground protest against the closure of Silverhill Colliery – October 1992. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper
In October 1992, Roy Lynk, President of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, went on a six day underground protest against the closure of Silverhill Colliery. It was reported in the media that Winston Churchill Jnr, sent a Harrods Hamper to Roy Lynk during his protest, although in a 2005 interview with the author he stated that he never received it. He did, however, return his OBE in protest at the 1992 pit closures.
Figure 15: Demolition at Silverhill Colliery in Spring 1994. Photo Credit – Kirkby Heritage Centre
Silverhill Colliery: Black to Green
Demolition took place in the first half of 1994 and the site, and that of neaby Teversal Colliery (closed 1980) was eventually transformed into a ‘green space’ known as Silverhill Wood.
Black to Green! Transition of the Silverhill Colliery site from demolition to a green space. (2 mins, 40 secs)
Figure 16: Silverhill mining statue in 2017. Photo Credit – David Amos
Silverhill Woods and Mining Memorials
As part of the black to green transistion, a statue of a colliery deputy testing for gas was erected at the summit of the former pit tip to recall the sites coalmining heritage(Fig 16). This is the highest point in Nottinghamshire with superb views on clear days over the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire
Figure 17: New Silverhill Colliery mining memorial, 30th August 2024. Photo Credit – David Amos
In August 2024, a new mining memorial dedicated to the miners of Silverhill Colliery was unveiled at the former colliery site (Fig.17).
For more information about Silverhill Colliery, see Bob Bradley’s ‘A Comprehensive History of Mining in the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire Coalfields in Chronological Order’ on the Healey Hero website at http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/individual/Bob_Bradley/Bk-6/B6-1993-1.html#top2 or visit the Teversal, Silverhill & Sutton Collieries Facebook page.
Figure 18: Former Silverhill miners at the ‘Mine-craft the Prequel’ project photo workshop event at Teversal Trails Visitors Centre on 24th February 2024. Photo Credit: David Amos
Figure 19: Teversal Trails Visitors Centre, February 2024. Photo Credit – David Amos
Teversal Trails Visitors Centre.
Teversal Trails Visitors Centre has photo displays of the local coalmining industry around Stanton Hill and is open most days from 10am to 1.30pm for breakfasts, hot drinks and snacks.
Teversal Trails Visitors Centre, Carnarvon Street, Teversal, Sutton-in-Ashfield, NG17 3HJ.
Tel: 07415 930752
Blog by David Amos
Posted by Mining Heritage Admin
17th September 2024