Explored as part of my Urbex trip in December. Love an old colliery, although I do prefer the architecture of old school collieries, rather than the modern functional designs of newer sites like this. I always find it intriguing how these places undergo demolition which just stops halfway through. Seems a waste of money 
It's taken me so long to get around to finishing this report, I've now done the rest of the coalfield as well
Stillingfleet is the best of the bunch by far.
Gascoigne Wood is in use as a Power Station, so didn't even try.
Whiremoor Mine is a plastic recycling place by the looks of satellite view, nothing left, didn't bother.
Riccall Mine is now an industrial park, drove down the access road, saw the brand new barriers, fucked off sharpish.
Wistow Mine is in use as a trailer graveyard. There are some colliery buildings remaining, but there was brand new cameras dotted around the site, and it looked like somebody was home, so didn't bother here either.
North Selby was a walk on from the pothole minefield of an access road, I'll include it at the end of this report.
On to the interesting part!
The History -
Planning permission was granted for the sinking of two 24ft diameter shafts at Stillingfleet in 1976, with Thyssen (GB) Ltd beginning preliminary work in 1977. Work to sink the 2323ft shafts began in June 1978, finally reaching the Barnsley Seam 1982. Work on developing the mine continued until 1988, when operations were finally able to begin.
The Colliery was part of the Selby Super Pit Complex, which consisted of pits located at Wistow Mine, Stillingfleet, Riccall Mine, North Selby Mine, Whiremoor Mine and Gascoigne Wood Mine. The Selby Coalfield was key in the NCB and Labour governments ambitious 'Plan For Coal', which was a decade long process of modernising indigenous coal production. This was to be done by closing older pits and investing in new production capacity, in order to maximise profits from UK reserves.
The Selby Complex was intended to last around 40 years, producing 10 million tonnes of coal per year. There was an estimated 2000 million tonnes of estimated reserves across multiple seams, although permission was only granted for mining the 600 million tonnes in the Barnsley Seam.
The Selby Coalfield used an unconventional approach to bringing coal to the surface, with no winding taking place at the pits. All coal was moved via underground tunnels to the Drift Mine at Gascoigne Wood for extraction.
All the pits suffered from geological issues due to their depth. North Selby Pit closed in July 1997 as a result of these issues. It was nearby to Stillingfleet, so they absorbed the coal reserves earmarked for North Selby into their own operations.
The Selby Complex's fortunes turned between 1995-99, going from profitable to loss making, with losses of £30m p.a. by 2000. These losses were exacerbated by the fixed costs of the single extraction point at Gascoigne Wood, so as production fell, losses increased. A phased closure began in July 2002. Coal extraction operations continued at Stillingfleet until 30th July 2004, when the colliery closed as part of the phased closure.
The Explore -
This is a walk on from the old access road, which made for convenient parking too. Wandered down towards the colliery, with the occasional old concrete lampposts lining the road.
Continued on, coming to a fork in the road, with the car park to the right, and the remaining colliery buildings to the left. First open door was here, appeared to be an old woodworking workshop, going from the H&S notice on the wall.
Love the classic look of this fire alarm call point -
Walked further into the site, and was able to see that there wasn't all that much left, although a lot of the cart track circuit does remain in situ.
Entered what appeared to be an old break room in what turned out to be a Stores building.
Found what could maybe be some sort of mock up crime scene, or some creativity from somebody and lots of spent shotgun shells dotted about. There was occasional gunshots in the distance the entire time I was here.
There was a couple of interesting documents dotted around the oil storage.
Left the stores building and headed towards the other large building on site. There was no access this side, so kept following the track towards what appeared to be the remains of garages.
Turned out to be a little hidden gem... I believe it was where some of the mine pony locomotives were stored.
Came across some paperwork that contained instructions on how to change the batteries, and a managers memo which reinforced this process. A very interesting find!
Thought I'd have a look at the mineshafts next. Both capped and fenced off, with what I'm guessing would have been the upcast shaft currently being used to draw up mine gas for electricity generation. Gave the buildings for this a wide berth, as they are still in use.
Finished the explore in the second large building, with access being via a choice of open doors, or torn down walls. Not much to be seen in here, couple of large empty rooms, and some offices. One had a wall plastered in pages from porn mags and some bodybuilders, a strange combination.
The lists of spare parts were of far more interest though!
All in all, a decent little mooch
Managed to find a couple of gauges too
-
Not much Graff dotted around, but did find this -
Oddities -
Thanks for looking
It's taken me so long to get around to finishing this report, I've now done the rest of the coalfield as well
Stillingfleet is the best of the bunch by far.Gascoigne Wood is in use as a Power Station, so didn't even try.
Whiremoor Mine is a plastic recycling place by the looks of satellite view, nothing left, didn't bother.
Riccall Mine is now an industrial park, drove down the access road, saw the brand new barriers, fucked off sharpish.
Wistow Mine is in use as a trailer graveyard. There are some colliery buildings remaining, but there was brand new cameras dotted around the site, and it looked like somebody was home, so didn't bother here either.
North Selby was a walk on from the pothole minefield of an access road, I'll include it at the end of this report.
On to the interesting part!
The History -
Planning permission was granted for the sinking of two 24ft diameter shafts at Stillingfleet in 1976, with Thyssen (GB) Ltd beginning preliminary work in 1977. Work to sink the 2323ft shafts began in June 1978, finally reaching the Barnsley Seam 1982. Work on developing the mine continued until 1988, when operations were finally able to begin.
The Colliery was part of the Selby Super Pit Complex, which consisted of pits located at Wistow Mine, Stillingfleet, Riccall Mine, North Selby Mine, Whiremoor Mine and Gascoigne Wood Mine. The Selby Coalfield was key in the NCB and Labour governments ambitious 'Plan For Coal', which was a decade long process of modernising indigenous coal production. This was to be done by closing older pits and investing in new production capacity, in order to maximise profits from UK reserves.
The Selby Complex was intended to last around 40 years, producing 10 million tonnes of coal per year. There was an estimated 2000 million tonnes of estimated reserves across multiple seams, although permission was only granted for mining the 600 million tonnes in the Barnsley Seam.
The Selby Coalfield used an unconventional approach to bringing coal to the surface, with no winding taking place at the pits. All coal was moved via underground tunnels to the Drift Mine at Gascoigne Wood for extraction.
All the pits suffered from geological issues due to their depth. North Selby Pit closed in July 1997 as a result of these issues. It was nearby to Stillingfleet, so they absorbed the coal reserves earmarked for North Selby into their own operations.
The Selby Complex's fortunes turned between 1995-99, going from profitable to loss making, with losses of £30m p.a. by 2000. These losses were exacerbated by the fixed costs of the single extraction point at Gascoigne Wood, so as production fell, losses increased. A phased closure began in July 2002. Coal extraction operations continued at Stillingfleet until 30th July 2004, when the colliery closed as part of the phased closure.
The Explore -
This is a walk on from the old access road, which made for convenient parking too. Wandered down towards the colliery, with the occasional old concrete lampposts lining the road.
Continued on, coming to a fork in the road, with the car park to the right, and the remaining colliery buildings to the left. First open door was here, appeared to be an old woodworking workshop, going from the H&S notice on the wall.
Love the classic look of this fire alarm call point -
Walked further into the site, and was able to see that there wasn't all that much left, although a lot of the cart track circuit does remain in situ.
Entered what appeared to be an old break room in what turned out to be a Stores building.
Found what could maybe be some sort of mock up crime scene, or some creativity from somebody
and lots of spent shotgun shells dotted about. There was occasional gunshots in the distance the entire time I was here.
There was a couple of interesting documents dotted around the oil storage.
Left the stores building and headed towards the other large building on site. There was no access this side, so kept following the track towards what appeared to be the remains of garages.
Turned out to be a little hidden gem... I believe it was where some of the mine pony locomotives were stored.
Came across some paperwork that contained instructions on how to change the batteries, and a managers memo which reinforced this process. A very interesting find!
Thought I'd have a look at the mineshafts next. Both capped and fenced off, with what I'm guessing would have been the upcast shaft currently being used to draw up mine gas for electricity generation. Gave the buildings for this a wide berth, as they are still in use.
Finished the explore in the second large building, with access being via a choice of open doors, or torn down walls. Not much to be seen in here, couple of large empty rooms, and some offices. One had a wall plastered in pages from porn mags and some bodybuilders, a strange combination.
The lists of spare parts were of far more interest though!
All in all, a decent little mooch
Managed to find a couple of gauges too
-
Not much Graff dotted around, but did find this -
Oddities -
Thanks for looking
