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Coal mining in the Peak District has exploited several relatively thin coal seams that were intermittently thick enough to be profitable. In the gritstone areas of the Peak District, to east and west, there were once many small coalmines, and there are still clues in the landscape as to their location.

Mining started in medieval times and was at its most productive in the 18th and early 19th centuries of the post-medieval period, in some cases continuing into the early 20th century. Earliest mining took place at and close to outcrops and miners eventually followed the seams deeper underground as the beds dipped beneath hillsides.

Often, because of the hilly topography and the contorted geology, the coal soon became inaccessible unless a considerable money and effort was invested to sink deep shafts and dewater the mines. The seams were often too thin and inaccessible to develop deep mining. An exception is at the Goyt’s Moss and Axe Edge mines where they were worked at some depth in the 18th to 20th centuries with the aid of engines to raise the coal and drainage levels to dewater the mines. One level was used as an underground canal that brought the coal to day close to Burbage on the outskirts of Buxton.

A fine square chimney at the Dane Bower Colliery, on the moors south-west of Buxton. This was linked by a flue to a now removed steam engine lower down the hillside, used for underground hauling of coal along the main mine adit.

Many of the mines have good survival of surface features and this stands in strong contrast with the surrounding lowlands where pitheads have mostly been levelled and the larger waste heaps landscaped. Thus, the Peak District mines are of particular archaeological importance.

The local mines were never as productive as the Coal Measure seams further east in the Yorkshire/Derbyshire coalfields, and west in the Lancashire/Cheshire coalfields, where they were often followed to great depth in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the Peak mines were conveniently sited for local markets, the coal used industrially and also for domestic purposes. Coal from the eastern mines was used extensively for lead smelting from the 18th century and also used underground in lead mines prior to the 18th century, burnt to provide intense heat to break the rocks. In the west the coal from around Buxton and Whaley Bridge was used in great quantity for commercial limeburning from the 17th century onwards.

Lead mine workings at Old Ash Mine near Wensley. The heavily sooted roof is a result of the use of coal fires in medieval or early post medieval times to break the rock to access the thin horizontal lead deposits.

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What Survives

On the western side of the Peak, there are intermittent remains of coalmines from north of Glossop, to the Roaches in the south.

The most commonly visible remains are low mounds of spoil from the sinking of shafts, the latter now collapsed or sealed. These are often found in clusters with many shafts in a small area. In most cases these shafts were relatively shallow and placed close together to facilitate ventilation because of the dangerous gases encountered underground.

While some sites have scores of shafts, normally only a handful of these would have been open at any one time, new shafts being sunk and old ones abandoned as mining followed the unworked parts of the seam. In some cases the shafts are right next to each other and this often denotes different episodes of mining, with later shafts sunk long after the first, to test if coal reserves had been left by earlier miners. Much rarer survivals are drift entrances, drainage sough tails and the circular platforms for timber gin engines operated by horses and used at deeper mines to bring coal up the shafts.

The most extensive evidence and perhaps the best place to view coal mining remains are in the upper Goyt Valley on the moors around Derbyshire Bridge at Goyt’s Moss, along the crest of Axe Edge and its western dipslopes, on several slopes centred on Three Shires Head and at Goldsitch Moss.

An isolated shaft mound north of Goldsitch Moss, sunk for ventilation when driving a drainage sough to the waterlogged coal workings here.

In the Goyt Valley, as well as many shaft mounds, there are gin circles and causeways between many of the shafts to allow access across wet ground.

A plan of Goyt Moss coal mines.

A few hundred metres north of Derbyshire Bridge there is a grilled sough tail adjacent to the river. At Dane Bower, a mile south-west of Derbyshire Bridge, the mining remains include a fine square chimney built for a now-demolished engine house further down the slope, and downstream by the river there are ruined mine buildings at the entrance to a mine adit.

East Moors coal mining runs from near Stocksbridge in the north to Alderwasley in the south. There are several places with good examples of surface features, as near Stanage Edge, Owler Bar, Robin Hood and Beeley Warren.

This deep hollow is one of many near Robin Hood. It is the site of a collapsed coal mine shaft and the waste heap of another can be seen behind. These shafts were part of the Baslow Colliery, which may have first been worked in the medieval times and was certainly producing coal from the Baslow Seam in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Plan of the coal mining surface remains south of Robin Hood above Baslow.

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What you can do

While the majority of sealed shafts are presumably safe, it is best to err on the side of caution and not stand in the present hollows at their former tops, in case the blocking should give way. For more information on visiting archaeological sites in the Peak District

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