Thorne Colliery

The colliery was open between 1925 and 1956; but had operational issues including shaft water, war time crises and maintenance trouble, causing the pit to be non-productive for much of its lifespan.

[2] Sinking encountered problems again in 1912, causing suspension of works; it was announced that operations would only be resumed if royalty owners agreed to reduced payments.

Ground freezing was used during construction during 1913, with expectations of the work taking a further eighteen months to complete, with coal production after a further three years.

The outbreak of the First World War severely impacted the construction of the pit: the German workers responsible for the freezing operations were arrested and taken to York Castle.

On 15 March 1926 however, shortly before the completion of shaft number 2, six men fell to their deaths when the Capstan engine controlling the scaffolding upon which they were working malfunctioned.

Immediately after the accident occurred the agent, Mr. Hoyle, proceeded to descend into the shaft to the estimated 11 ft water-level where nothing could be seen.

There were some minimal markings to the shaft walls below where the platform had fallen and little damage apart from some girders which had been dislodged at the High Hazel presumably by the tumbling scaffolding ropes.

The given verdict had been largely influenced by a special report made regarding this accident by Mr H.M. Hudspeth, H.M. Divisional Inspector for the Yorkshire Division of Mines.

The conclusion he personally produced was that the engine driver accidentally put his level into the position for lowering scaffold while the capstan drums were held by the restraining pawls.

On 31 July 1958 the Doncaster Examiner reported that "excess flood waters have again battered through tons of concrete, causing the worst setback since the pit was closed two years ago".

By 1962 the predicted re-opening date had been put back to 1964 at the earliest; in November of that year it was reported that waterproofing would be completed by the following June.

In August 1966 a paper of the Mining Engineers opened with the words "Thorne Colliery was probably the most courageous coal mining enterprise undertaken in the early years of the twentieth century", going on to note the pit had a fundamental problem in the "unconformable strata" (strata geologically out of sequence), which led to excessive water flow.

The paper proposed the installation of composite shaft linings, having an inner cylinder of steel bonded to high grade concrete able to withstand the hydrostatic pressures.