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| An exposure of coal |
When I first visited the Shitcliffe Valley at the beginning of June 2020, I was informed by Pat Howells of the Friends of Shirtcliffe that the valley was once mined for coal and a small outcrop could still be seen in Smelter Wood.
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| Sites of collieries in the Shirtcliffe Valley |
Drift mines at Smelter Wood, Bramley Hall, Bramley Hall No.2 and the Vicar Lane colliery exploited the Swallow Wood coal seam, a bituminous coal, which was economically important in the region and, at Bramley Hall, the underlying fireclay was also worked for refractory ware.
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| The Swallow Wood (SW) coal seam in the Shirtcliffe Valley |
Having had a good look at the sandstone in the area of the valley known as The Edge, I carried on along the escarpment and, not referring to the map with me, I didn’t notice the site of the old sandstone quarry marked on the 1855 map, which is shown as a plantation on later editions.
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| A view of Smelter Wood from The Edge |
Descending from The Edge and following the main path into Smelter Wood, I eventually came to Shirtcliff Brook, where the sewage pipe forms a recognisable landmark that I had encoutered during my previous visit.
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| The sewage pipe in Smelter Wood |
The map that I had been given showed the position of the coal to be just to the north of the stream crossing here but, before I went to find it, I investigated the rock exposures that I could see in the streambed and banks.
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| Siltstone in the stream bed of Shirtcliff Brook |
In places, the streambed is formed of exposed bedding planes of grey siltstone, with iron staining, and this can also be seen projecting from the banks at water level. The grey colour is similar to the siltstone seen earlier in the walk and in some of the poor quality walling stone at St. Mary’s church and in various boundary walls in Handsworth.
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| A view along the streambed |
The streambed is also littered with various fragments of various shapes, sizes and colours and, in addition to examples of the underlying bedrock, this includes brick, concrete and miscellaneous building materials that are probably associated with the former drift mines here.
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| A mossy bank alongside the main path |
Returning to the main path and following the brook upstream, if I hadn’t been given information on where to find the coal seam, it is quite likely that I would never have found it; however, the bank alongside the path had a covering of moss that caught my eye and, looking very closely at this, I found a very small exposure.
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| A small exposure of coal |
At first, examining a few loose fragments that were lying below this exposure, which made me wonder if someone else had recently uncovered this, I thought that it might be a dark mudstone or shale of the type that I had encountered in the banks of the River Rother during my investigation of the Waverley Estate.
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| A detail of the coal exposure |
Using my stainless steel knife to collect some small samples and my hand lens to examine them, I could confirm that it was in fact coal, albeit a poor quality coal that the miners used to call dirt and which is recorded as alternating with the coal seams in both of the Bramley Hall collieries on pp. 97-98 of the Sheffield memoir.
The coal mining industry was once the backbone of the UK economy and, as I have discovered during my local walks during the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdowns, the landscapes of South Yorkshire have been greatly affected by this.
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| Samples of coal from Smelter Wood |
During the very many site surveys that I have undertaken over the years in South Yorkshire, I had previously encountered coal seams only at Bradgate Brickworks and Loadfield Quarry, with others along the Clowne Greenway in Derbyshire and underground at the National Coal Mining Museum in West Yorkshire.
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| Specimens of coal from my rock collection |
The outcrop in Smelter Wood might not be very spectacular but, as a very rare example of a readily accessible coal seam that is very likely to be soon enveloped by the surrounding undergrowth, it has great conservation and educational value and I was glad that I made an effort to go and find it.
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