Report - Maltby Colliery Pithead Baths, Yorkshire - May 2015

clebby · Aug 19, 2015

Maltby Colliery Pithead Baths, South Yorkshire.

Visited with Speed.

Some history:

The first shafts at Maltby Main Colliery were sunk in 1910, and the first coal produced four years later. Situated in a wooded area on Tickhill Road the colliery was some distance from the township of Maltby and in order to gain a workforce the colliery company commissioned the building of Maltby Model Village, an estate of 1,000 houses.The colliery was opened by the Maltby Main Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Sheepbridge Iron and Coal Company. Before nationalisation the owners were given as Amalgamated Denaby Collieries Ltd.

An explosion in the pit occurred 28 July 1923, resulting in 27 deaths. The two shafts were deepened in the ten years from 1951 and this allowed horizontal access to the Barnsley seam. This also gave access to a new Swallow Wood seam. By 1969 the Barnsley seam was considered exhausted and production went over to Swallow Wood. In 1981 a major project commenced to mine the Parkgate seam. Costing £180,000,000 the first coal was brought to the surface just one year later. The colliery was mass picketed during the 1984–1985 miners' strike during attempts by contractors to carry out building work at the pit.

The colliery was bought by RJB Mining, later renamed UK Coal, in 1994. Silverwood Colliery, the adjacent mine, closed in 1994 but had good reserves which could be worked from Maltby. Uncertainties with contracts, notably with the electricity generators, meant production was stopped in 1997. The pit recommenced operations and coal was gained from both the Parkgate seam, which was expected to be exhausted by 2014, and the Silkstone seam, which it was hoped would extend the life of the colliery beyond that date.

In 2007 Maltby Colliery was sold by UK Coal to Hargreaves Services plc for £21.5 million, resulting in the continued employment of 500 people. Access to the reserves was gained by two shafts, No.2 984m deep and No.3 991m deep, with the capability of winding up to 1,500 tonnes of mineral an hour to the surface.

In May 2012 unusual and dangerous geological conditions (oil, water and gas ingress) were discovered in workings of the T125 block that was to be exploited in 2013, resulting in abandonment of the tailgate for that block, and was expected to cause an gap in production of 1.5 to 3 months. In late 2012 the 540 employees were given redundancy notices, and the pit owner announced it was to mothball the colliery due to dangerous underground conditions. On December 2012 Hargeaves announced that the colliery was to close due to the geological problems, and the mine was closed in 2013. Most of the above ground structures were subsequently demolished in 2014.

One of the biggest regrets I have from my time exploring is missing the boat with Maltby when everyone was doing the headstocks last year. Fortunately, whilst they were demolishing these structures the bathhouse was being used as a de facto base, a fact Dave and Joe discovered when they wandered into the showers only to be confronted by a naked Polish man.

After myself and dweeb visited Harworth Colliery back in January, I suggested we drive into Maltby to see if anything had changed. Dweeb informed me that Maltby was about an hours drive away from where we were and that it wouldn't be worth it, at the precise moment we drove past the sign saying 'welcome to Maltby'. Turns out he had been coerced into going charity shopping in Kings Heath and was just making excuses so he could get back home :rolleyes:

Anyhow, a few months later I figured it was about time we headed up for another look. Some pictures, starting with the lamp room:

Self-Rescuers:

The remains of the bridge that used to connect the baths to the shafts:

Lamp return hatch:

The showers themselves had been modernised at some point and lacked those gorgeous glazed brick partitions that are typical of NCB bath houses. Still reasonably dated mind.