Clipstone Colliery - Nottingham - September 2010
Visited with Host, Oldskool, Kitty & Bugsuperstar
Geographically challenged, might just scrape as North West?
Good times all round, a 3am start, sausage and egg 'Cobs', numb bums and napping in farmers fields, a typical industrial explore, quite indeed.
Clipstone, as we all know and love APPARENTLY is / was home to the highest headstocks in Europe and the 3rd largest in the world.
The colliery was sunk to exploit the Barnsley seam or “Tophard”, as it known locally. In the 1950’s the shafts were deepened to over 1000 yards (920 m) to exploit other seams.
The colliery was closed by British Coal, as the National Coal Board had become, in 1993 and reopened by RJB Mining (now UK Coal) in April 1994, the licence to dig for coal being limited to the Yard seam which is located at a depth of 957 yards (870 m). The colliery was finally closed in April 2003.
The headstocks of the colliery are regarded as the tallest in Europe and the third tallest in the world. They are Grade 2 Listed structures and can be seen all over the district. They are expensive to keep in good repair and there have been a number of appeals, as yet to no avail, to demolish them. But however the clipstone headstocks are nearly demolished now and no one knows what will happen in the future.
Here goes...
5.00 Am on top of the world played host to a fantastic sunrise.
Goodbye Shot
There was a lot more covered than seen in this report, but I couldn't possibly jam it all in, hope you enjoyed regardless.
Cheers :thumb