A series of explosions caused by firedamp ripped through the underground workings at the Oaks Colliery at Hoyle Mill near Stairfoot in Barnsley killing 361 miners and rescuers.

They are a rare survival of winding-shaft structures modernised in the 1950s by the National Coal Board, and their presence preserves a historical connection to past disasters.

[5] Parkin Jeffcock, the mining engineer who attended after the explosion, agreed that the fireman[e] had written "Fire" but said that this was not unusual.

[11] To improve the ventilation and alleviate the problem of gas issuing from the seam, a drift through the rock was blasted from near the pit bottom towards the more remote workings.

[13] A critical aspect to the science of firedamp explosions is the afterdamp, the aftermath mix of gases, which can be equally dangerous, if not more so.

[18] After another rope was attached, rescue volunteers including P. Cooper, John Brown, William Porter Maddison, William Auboné Potter, Kell, John Platts, George Minto, the under-viewer from Mount Osborne Colliery (and previous under-viewer at the Oaks), and other engineers and deputies from surrounding collieries, along with seventy or eighty additional men, went down.

[18] The few survivors of the initial blast had made their way to the shaft bottom where there was some air; those in more distant areas succumbed to the afterdamp, principally carbon monoxide.

[f][11] Jeffcock descended into the pit at 10:00 pm and met Minto, Brown, Potter, Cooper, and Platts who were finally coming up for rest.

[11] At 1.30 am most of the men below ground came up due to a false alarm and Minto went with John Smith (the mining engineer from Lundhill Colliery) below to investigate.

Part way up they encountered a strong blower of chokedamp (mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen) which accounted for much of the foul air.

Matthew Hague (alternately Haigh), a night deputy, was underground with Sugden in charge of a party of men about 650 yards (590 m) from the pit bottom.

The air stream rapidly changed direction, a sure sign of an explosion and the men rushed to the pit bottom to be lifted out, though Sugden remained behind as he felt it his duty.

Dymond, Minto, Brown, Potter, and Smith (of Monkwearmouth) had gathered around the furnace shaft to check on the air state and were thrown to the ground.

1 cage was blasted into the headgear, dense clouds of smoke were emitted, and large burning timbers were hurled into the air.

It was apparent that the 28 rescuers still below ground (including Jeffcock, Tewart, Siddons, Sugden, Smith (of Lundhill), Barker, and twenty two others) were dead and little could be done to recover the bodies.

Due to its inherent lack of stability, the rope twisted and swung them round as they were lowered so it was with difficulty that they kept from being overcome by dizziness while fending off collisions with the walls using their free arm.

[32] A meeting between the colliery viewers and the government inspector concluded that nothing more could be done for those below, and with the mine alight the only option was to seal it to extinguish the fire.

[33] Tomlinson describes a visit he made to the pithead during this time: One shaft was filled up – chokeful of earth and rubbish; the other had a wooden scaffold suspended by wire ropes, and let down about twenty yards.

Upon this cage was first piled straw, &c., and then puddled clay ; so that, except a small aperture from a temporary iron pipe (which contains a valve to close or open the orifice at will), this shaft, also, was sealed up.

[36] On Sunday 16 December, special trains filled with sightseers ran to Barnsley from Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield and Manchester.

[37] The bodies that had been recovered were interred in Ardsley churchyard, where 35 were buried in a mass grave, at Monk Bretton and in the new municipal cemetery.

[37] Major disasters had a devastating impact on local communities and Hoyle Mill and nearby settlements lost most of their young and adult males leaving scores of widows and even more dependent children.

Some local friendly societies paid their members grants towards funeral costs and colliery owners provided a small amount of temporary aid and allowed the families to stay rent free in the pit houses.

The district mines' inspector, Charles Morton, resigned during the inquest with ill health and his place was taken by Joseph Dickinson from Lancashire.

[47] William Gibson gave evidence that the night before the meeting of the men and the management, gas had fired at his master, Andrew Barker's lamp and he was "knocked up" after three and a half hours work.

The initial blast may have caused a chain reaction triggering a firedamp and coal dust explosion that devastated the rest of the pit.

Petitions were sent to the Home Office asking for an official inquiry into the disaster and the unsafe state of coal mines generally.

Dickinson and a representative of the colliery owners were interviewed by a select committee of the House of Commons but the government responded with no urgency and twelve more explosions had occurred before the 1872 Coal Mines Act was operational.

The accident was the worst in British mining history until the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster which claimed 439 lives in the South Wales coalfield in 1913.

[52] A volunteer research project by the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership in 2016 produced a list of 383 names although not all were verified as dead in the disaster.