| Entry Type | Corporate |
| Corporate Name | Kirkby Colliery |
| Parent Body | Butterley Company |
| 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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