Tribute To The Proud Coal Miners Of Cotgrave Colliery.

Subscribe to my you tube channel for 200+ more coal mine tributes and counting. Cotgrave Colliery 1958 to 1992. Sadly recorded 10 fatalities in it`s short history. The town lies on the Grantham Canal, opened in 1797, but it did not grow until the discovery of coal in the area in about 1950. Smaller exploration for coal had been attempted for an hundred years but the Cotgrave colliery was established in the early 1960s with large numbers of miners & their families being relocated from other mining areas in England, especially the North East, to live on a large purpose built housing estate. Initially, in 1962, around 500 experienced mining workers, and their families, accepted the NCB incentive of tied new houses complete with furnishings to move from the area of the recently closed Radford Mine on the North West side of nearby Nottingham. This mine was near the site of what is now known as Bobber’s Mill. Some four years later a similar scheme was introduced to attract miners from other worked out mines in the north east of England including Gateshead, It is interesting to note that, according to residents special meetings were arranged in the township so that workers already established could understand, for safety reasons, the dialect, and vice versa, of the newcomers.The population of the village rose from around 700 to over 5,000 within a few years. A rail track was extended from Nottingham over the river Trent past Radcliffe on Trent to service the colliery. The koepe towers at the pit head were considered very modern and distinctive from more traditional pit head winding gear towers. In a departure from traditional miners working conditions the face workers had extensive modern changing and shower facilities that meant they could leave as clean as they entered. The local economy was devastated with its closure in 1993/4 a move that left many former miners bitter as to their fate.On its closure it is reported that the seams had millions of tons of coal reserves but it was poor quality. Local residents, however, recount that the mine was shut because of geological faults, the encounter of a subterranean stream and subsequent flood problems, and the growing remoteness of the seam face from the shaft drastically increasing the cost of bringing the coal to the surface. The shafts were filled with concrete on closure and all associated buildings demolished.
The local economy has improved considerably as Cotgrave is surrounded by an affluent area with low unemployment. Many of the mine workers who hailed from the north east stayed in Cotgrave and built homes and families.