New Hucknall Colliery
Pit Yard Demolition
Retired NCB employees recall their years at New Hucknall Colliery with mixed feelings. Underground work certainly didn't suit everyone, so a great deal of pride is held by those who regularly coped with the inherent dangers, especially if fit and strong enough to achieve highest earnings first labouring away the coal face.
Giving jobs for all means individual experiences vary widely. Professional bonds were however forged in respectful trust between various supportive pit top occupations. Some will fondly recall a close camaraderie, although it does seems fair to say few mourned the pits December 1981 closure ending 103 productive years. The full shock came later, on witnessing mass coal mine closures sharing devastating consequences still felt throughout similar mining communities. Despite everything, many will find a nostalgic pride sharing these 1982 demolition scenes captured by electrician Mick Bostock.
My camera captured the following final scenes of a few surviving buildings fronting cleared grounds. These and the former pit tip overlooked rapid residential growth stretching length of the Pit Road entrance. Offices went on serving a successful IMC into 2007, while the adjacent pit tip extended life of a Sutton Landfill. Landscaping had started planting out a new Rookery Park when the bulldozers moved in again January 2008, wiping grounds ready for another housing estate eventually extending future Mill Lane addressing.
Written 03 Aug 04 Revised 18 Jul 09 © by Gary Elliott
