Can anyone please tell my daughter doing a school project what the mine was called and any other information about it that used to be, where Rother Valley is now. It was somekind of coal mine but thats about all she knows!!
She's only got 3 weeks left so any info sooner the better Cheers!

Could it've been Brookhouse Colliery?

some history here but it doesnt mention the name
http://www.rothervalley.f9.co.uk/history.htm

Could it've been Brookhouse Colliery?

Yes it was Brookhouse,I used to live at the farm just below the colliery in the 50's.

It was open meadows before Rother Valley Country Park was sited there. These led to Bedgreave Mill which was renevated and incorporated into the park.

In the enclosure map the meadows pre-railway days are decribed as the wet lands, and there were times when that was a good desciption of the area.

Brookhouse Colliery closed in 1985.

After closure the site became part of a long held plan by Rotherham Borough Council, Sheffield City Council and North East Derbyshire District Council to create the northern extension to the Rother Valley Country Park. The first part of the plan, the southern part of which was commenced in 1976, was to extract coal by opencasting from the area before commencement of landscaping.


Tuppie

so will you be posting any info she finds here so we can all read it? :)

I've read some of the history on the shirebrook valley, but not seen anything on the Rothervalley site up to now

When I worked on the railway, from Grimesthorpe, we had a job which went to Woodhouse Mill. Now there was a lot of railway lines around there, some old L.M.S. and some G.C. but Woodhouse Mill was on what we used to call 'The Old Road', that was old L.M.S. I remember we used to pass a lumber yard before we got to Woodhouse Mill sidings, in winter there would be heavy flooding. I particulary remember a pub, seemed to get flooded really badly every winter. I think all that area is where the Rother Valley C.P is now.

There were two opencast coal sites that eventually became Rother Valley CP. One contained a scrapyard at the now restored Bedgrave Mill and a large WW2 bomb was discovered in the same area during mining operations. The other site was near to Swallownest and where Brookhouse Colliery used to be.

I think the pub would be the Princess Royal Texas
and the lumberyard was always catching fire, spontanious combustion they said. You would have thought the 2 things combined would have sorted the fires out.
Rother Valley Park does not reach as far as Woodhouse Mill but is quite near.
The entrances that I know are at Southall (Beighton) Killamash, and one near the Angel Pub on Rotherham Road probably still in KiIlamarsh.

Hazel

PS Trains still go on the Woodhouse Mill line

it was a company called shand that did the works,hope that helps

In early 1980's we used to walk on the fields/meadows of what became the Rother Valley Country Park. Ironically, when they started doing the excavation work for the part which became the "lake" you needed wellies and very good calf muscles as the ground was very boggy, it's probably the reason why it was chosen for the water part of RVCP.
When we moved to Beighton the land was still used by the farmer in Beighton, there were cows in the field but, only in the upper part because of the boggy nature of the land.

Thanks hazel, for that bit of info' regarding the pub at Woodhouse Mill. I never did know what it's name was. Is it still there? It used to look like something out of 'Wuthering Heights'. I hope Trickytrace's daughter is getting something out of all this.

Yes, as far as I know The Pricess Royal is still there.
It used to stand on it's own looking very bleak, it's still on it's own but quite a few new houses have been built close by so I should think the clientele has changed.
The Juction PUb has been gentrified too.

That sounds like an excellent example of building on flood plains that we hear so much about.

Can anyone please tell my daughter doing a school project what the mine was called and any other information about it that used to be, where Rother Valley is now. It was somekind of coal mine but thats about all she knows!!
She's only got 3 weeks left so any info sooner the better Cheers!

It was called Meadowgate Opencast Coal Site,and was outcropped by Shand Mining from Matlock in 1976-81,before that the land was open fields with a scrapyard (Wards) in the middle where old railway carriages were cut up at the side of the River Rother.As my old mate :wave:cat 631 :wave:says there was an unexploded WW2 bomb (4000 pounder i believe) found on site buried in the sub-soil,it was detonated after half of the explosive had been removed one saturday about 5pm,and shook windows for miles around (ours included)even shattering some in Beighton.The Rother's course was re-located down the side of the railway track (where the lake is now)to allow mining operations to take place,then put back in it's original place when landscaped.Over a million tons of coal was extracted over 5 years.At the other end where Brookhouse pit was, the opencast site was called Pithouse East and was outcropped by A.F.Budge from Retford..1989..94.Coming back towards Walesbar ,between Walesbar and Waleswood at the back of the terrace houses was Pithouse West opencast site which was outcropped by Miller Mining from Leeds in 1972-76.Before all this Bedgreave Mill was actually the first opencast mine in the country starting around 1946-7 allowing coal to be extracted quickly after the 2nd world war.In the field opposite what used to be the Waleswood Hotel the Americans brought over and built a large walking dragline.....a Monaghan....so i was told,by some of the locals at the Bar who lived there at the time.......and travelled (walked) it across the fields to commence work on the coal site...........:thumbsup: hope this helps a bit.

this is a walking dragline..........

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjb-u9Nm5M&feature=related

There were two opencast coal sites that eventually became Rother Valley CP. One contained a scrapyard at the now restored Bedgrave Mill and a large WW2 bomb was discovered in the same area during mining operations. The other site was near to Swallownest and where Brookhouse Colliery used to be.

here's something to help you load up cat631........:hihi:...:hihi:...:thumbsup:


http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh250/cat657/Picture009.jpg

Thanks Paul, great photo. Is this the one you dug up the bomb with?

All the view and more beyond the Aston bypass is where the opencast site was. I can remember it being a right old eyesore, anyone looking on this view now would not believe the mess it looked 15/20 years ago with the huge machines churning the ground up.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/alankearn/DSC01499.jpg

Thanks Paul, great photo. Is this the one you dug up the bomb with?
Hi,631,
No,actually it was this here,

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh250/cat657/img039-1.jpg

these missed it..:)

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh250/cat657/img041.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh250/cat657/img042.jpg

this is looking over towards beighton

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh250/cat657/img040.jpg

Thanks everyone thats brill, My daughter better get an A* after all this. Cheers!!