How did Elsecar's industrial story begin?

The village of Elsecar sits on geological formations made up of mudstones, shales, sandstones, and coal seams.
The area is part of the South Yorkshire Coalfield famous for its rich coal deposits. These coal seams played an important role in the development of Elsecar’s landscape. Agriculture was the main activity in the area before the 1750s. Small-scale and shallow mining also took place as coal deposits were close to the surface. Around 1750, Richard Bingley started the first major Elsecar Colliery (later known as Elsecar Old Colliery after the sinking of the Elsecar New Colliery). Later in the 1760s, Charles Watson- Wentworth, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, took over the site as well as the Low Wood Colliery. These marked the start of Elsecar being transformed from a rural hamlet into an industrial estate village for the Earls Fitzwilliam. Elsecar was also conveniently located near to the Fitzwilliam’s estate seat of Wentworth Woodhouse.

Did you know?

It is thought that the name “Elsecar” came from the Old English name of “Aelfsige” and the Old Norse word “kjarr”, which meant a marshy or wet place.

Extract from a 1757 map showing collieries at Elsicar (sic) and West Wood

Drawn by William Fairbank Junior

A vintage map showing fields, woods, and labeled areas such as "Great Arn Road," "Copercar Wood," "Efficar Croft," paths, and small buildings. Red and yellow shading highlights different areas.
Image courtesy of Barnsley Archives and Local Studies. Ref: A/3491/Z/1

This is the earliest known collieries map illustrating Elsecar as a tiny hamlet known as "Elsicar Green" You can see a few cottages around a triangular green space, surrounded by gardens and orchards. The map also illustrates the early road layout of Water Lane, Wath Road, and Fitzwilliam Street, with a few scattered properties.

Elsecar Old Colliery plan, 1793

A detailed, hand-drawn and colored 18th-century map shows a landscape with trees, buildings, and cross-sectional diagrams of land below. A decorative title and a reference list describing numbered features are on the right.
Image courtesy of Sheffield City Archives: WWM/MP/55.

The top illustration shows what the colliery looked like above ground. The lower illustration shows the detailed workings of the colliery. Elsecar Old Colliery was located near Elsecar Green and Milton Foundry. By 1848, 87 men and boys worked there and it was renamed Elsecar High Colliery. The site closed in 1888 when there was no more coal to be extracted. Over time, a total of eight collieries were sunk here in Elsecar. Each colliery was bigger and deeper than the previous one sunk.


They were:
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1700s – Simon Wood Bell Pits, 3 metres deep
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1720 – West Wood and Low Wood Collieries, 10 metres deep
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1752 – Elsecar Old Colliery, 15 metres deep
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1795 – Elsecar New Colliery, 33 metres deep
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1837 – Jump Pit, 55 metres deep
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1848 – Elsecar Low (Hemingfield Colliery), 140 metres deep
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1853 – Simon Wood Colliery, 85 metres deep
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1905 – Elsecar Main Colliery, 365 metres deep