The entire Bradford area was a large coal-mining centre in the nineteenth century, and indeed for centuries before that time. In Thornton, as in my locality of Heaton, the seams exploited were the (Halifax) Hard and Soft Beds, the deepest commercially winnable seams in the Lower Coal Measures. It is not easy to get a handle on the extent of the entire industry. Property sales may include mention of the coal seams, and serious injury or death to a miner would rate a mention in the local press. The presence of working or ‘old’ pits are often indicated on maps.

The industry was not without its controversies. This 1836 plan in the Local Studies Library was evidently a plaintiff’s map, prepared for a legal case called Smith (and another) v Bairstow. The claim was that Bairstow had encroached on the coal seam which Smith either owned or leased. Bairstow had a working pit at Alderscholes but had also made an opening into the plaintiff’s ‘loose’, although I’m not sure what the word means in this context.

The detail from the first OS map shows the same area 10-15 years later. Viewers of BBC TV series ‘Gentleman Jack’ will know how arguments about who was stealing whose coal, deep underground, could arise. Later in the century the law required ‘abandonment plans’ to be drawn when coal extraction ceased, but at this early stage the shafts and workings were simply abandoned. The landowner would probably insist that old shafts were filled in, but the number of unexpected soil settlements that occur, even today, suggests that this process was far from satisfactory.

I haven’t been able to establish any more information concerning Smith v Bairstow. Possibly the two mine owners were able to reach agreement without litigation. Pencil annotations reveal the extent of their holdings. An additional colliery was owned by Wood and Co.

If you are interested in the history of Thornton may I recommend the excellent Thornton 1751-1938: History in the Making. This was published by the Thornton Antiquarian Society in 2022 and a copy was generously presented to the Local Studies Library. It includes this photograph of Top Coal Pit on Thornton Road. Evidently this would be rather later than the collieries previously mentioned, but it will provide a general idea of a sight which was once common throughout the entire Bradford area.

It is possible that Thornton was the location of the last working coal mine in Bradford. I have been told that the company known as Thornton Fireclay was mining and using its own coal up until the 1960s. Fire clay, which it turned into sewer pipes and similar items, was a seat-earth found under several of the seams in the coal measures. All traces of these industries are now swept away.