Waleswood Colliery

Waleswood Colliery was a coal mine situated between Swallownest and Wales Bar, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The colliery was adjacent to the Rotherham to Clowne road and the main line of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway about 2 miles east of Woodhouse.

The first shaft was sunk in the 1860s when the colliery was owned by Skinner and Holford Limited. In 1947 the colliery and its associated by-product plant passed to the National Coal Board, the colliery being closed the following year. As the collieries in the area became inter-connected it was retained as a pumping station. The coke ovens and by-products plant closed in 1962.

Many of the colliery buildings have been retained and now form the basis of an industrial estate.

Read more about Waleswood Colliery and its neighbours Kiveton Park and West Kiveton at http://www.kivetonwaleshistory.co.uk

During its lifetime the colliery had four steam locomotives, never more than two at any one time.

Waleswood's restoration at Shackerstone halted due to unfortunate circumstances and it spent decades in the rain and elements in storage both at Shackerstone and Statfold Barn. In 2016 it changed ownership and was moved to the Northamptonsie Ironstone Railway at Hunsbury Hill where it is undergoing a full restorative rebuild. It is planned to return to steam during 2017.

Download Alan Rowles' 'Railways of Kiveton and Wales' at http://www.kivetonwaleshistory.co.uk/#sections/publications/ and see photos of the Waleswood locomotives in the site's photo archive.

East of Sheffield by Roger Milnes. "Forward" – The journal of the Great Central Railway Society, No.16, July 1984. ISSN 0141-4488 (This article also uses unpublished material researched for "East of Sheffield" from various sources including members of Woodhouse Local History Group, members of the Great Central Railway Society and others).

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