Record

Entry Type	Corporate
Corporate Name	Kirkby Colliery
Parent Body	Butterley Company
Parent Body	National Coal Board
Also Known As	Summit Colliery Lowmoor Colliery
Place	Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
Epithet	coal mine
Dates	1888-1968
History	The colliery was also locally as Summitt Colliery. The first two shafts were sunk between 1888 and 1890. A third shaft was sunk between 1913 and 1915. This shaft was known as Lowmoor and worked as a separate colliery until it fully merged in 1939. The site was one of the company’s most important sites. It was also the first of the Butterley Company collieries to generate its own electricity. The housing for this colliery was the first owned by the Butterley Company to provide bathrooms. There was an electric power plant and two large screening plants on the site. There was also a railway sidings and locomotive sheds located next to the colliery. These onsite buildings, a new drift mine, and underground connections with nearby Langton and Brookhill Collieries, prepared the way for the site to become a super pit. However, geological faults, and a lack of planning permission for a tip and slurry pond extension meant it was no longer viable. It closed in 1968. Ironically the highest recorded production and manpower just before its closure. The output was 1,088,264 tons with 2,258 men. Known managers: • Henry Stevenson • Ben McLaren • C. J. Turton • R. G. Richardson • Hubert Hyde • George H Riley • W. H. Hardy • Hubert Hyde • Alf Maddox • R. G. Richardson • H. Coates • Jack G. Belfitt • Peter L. Harley • Jacky P. Mehers • Jimmy A. Wright • Arthur Gidlow
Key Events	1888-1890: First sunk 1913-1915: Third shaft known as Lowmoor sunk 1939: Lowmoor merged 1947: Nationalisation 1968: Closed
Source	‘1968’, http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/individual/Bob_Bradley/Bk-5/B5-1968-H.html ‘Documents relating to the Butterley Company’s Collieries, Derbyshire, 1871-3’, Society for the Study for the Study of Labour History Bulletin, 18 (1969), pp. 21-27 Bell, D., Memories of the Derbyshire Coalfields (Newbury: Countryside Books, 2006) Butterley Co. Ltd., Promotional Guide for Colliery Department (early 20th century), in N5/399 Butterley Company through Nine Reigns (1953) Mining Heritage, A Summit Circular, https://miningheritage.co.uk/summit-circular-a-look-into-kirkby-in-ashfields-industrial-past/ Mining Heritage, Kirkby ‘Summit’ Colliery: 50th anniversary of closure, https://miningheritage.co.uk/kirkby-summit-colliery-50th-anniversary-of-closure/ Riden, P., The Butterley Company, 1790-1830, Second Edition (1990) The History and Genealogy of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, A History of Kirkby-in-Ashfield http://www.oldnotts.co.uk/kirkby/history.htm
Authorised Form of Name	Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.; Kirkby Colliery; 1888-1968; coal mine

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