Clipstone Colliery

Clipstone Colliery 2003
Copyright © Harald Finster and used with his kind permission

In 1889 Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge formed the Bolsover Colliery Co. Ltd and secured a lease on land at Creswell from Earl Manvers and Lord Savile. The company started shaft sinking in 1922.

Leases were also secured to mine coal at Bolsover (1891), Cresswell (1894), Mansfield (1905), Rufford (1913) and Thoresby (1928)

By 1933 the company’s mines employed over 9,000 men extracting 4.5 million tons of coal from the Top Hard, Waterloo and High Hazel seams.

The colliery was originally sunk to exploit the Barnsley (Top Hard) seam, but in the 1950s the shafts were deepened to over 1000 yards (920m) to exploit other seams.

In 1947 the National Coal Board took over all the company’s collieries and worked Clipstone until its closure by British Coal in 1993.

The colliery was reopened by RJB Mining in April 1994 to work the Yard seam at a depth of 957 yards (870m). Final closure came in April 2003.