Hi
Can you please tell me what the tallest building is at the colliery.
I see this every time I travel south on the M18 and A1 but no one I know can give me an answer.
Possibilities proposed have been a headgear, a washing plant or a crushing mill.
Thanx
New Concrete Tower Built Over Harworth Colliery No1 Shaft
With The Koepe 4 Rope Winder At The Top
Fionn
I trust this will explain what the towers are.
Photo to right shows the new concrete tower built over Harworth Colliery No1 shaft with the Koepe 4 rope winder at the top.
Prior to these towers, both shafts had traditional steel headgears with pulley wheels and operated by ground mounted electric winders. Note the existing No2 conventional steel framed headgear to the right which is dwarfed at about 30 metres high.
No1 shaft was same as that before the concrete structure was built over it. The old steel headgear was cut at the base and the whole pulled out by winch to be demolished.
A new taller steel framework was pulled into the old headgear position and anchored. The electric winding engine for that shaft is situated high above inside the concrete structure. The system of winding coal is by Koepe friction winding by 4 ropes over a large drum attached to each of two skips. The operation for No1 shaft was completed during an extended 3 weeks holiday period in 1988.
As one full skip of coal is raised to be emptied at the surface the other empty skip is lowered down the shaft to be filled and so on.
Photo below shows the size of the 30 tonnes capacity skip that brings coal up the shaft from 1,000 metres deep from the Deep Soft seam level.
30 Tonnes Capacity Skip
Photo below shows the completion today with a new smaller concrete headgear about half the size of the other built over the top of the No2 manriding and materials shaft. In the case of the No2 shaft the electric engine is floor mounted and the single rope for each of 2 cages goes over the traditional style of pulley wheels inside the structure. Again as one cage of men or materials is lowered down the shaft another cage of men or empty trams is raised up the shaft.
Automatic winding is controlled as for example like a lift in a shop or a carpark.
Town and Country Planning department decreed that blue and yellow stripes be painted on the concrete towers so as to blend in with the sky, being as they are large structures.
Night beacons are attached for the aid of low flying aeroplanes.
As many will know the towers can be seen from many miles away.
I had the pleasure of standing on the top of the largest one in 1989 and it was awesome. Due to the general low lying land extreme distances can be seen, such as Boston Stump.
The Colliery at present is in 'mothballs' awaiting a buyer and has been since October 2006.
The Colliery although closed has the largest reserves of coal in the country, however it is very hot in the underground workings, as I have experienced.
A skeleton maintenance team is in attendance and huge quantities of methane gas are pumped out of the mine through pipes in the shaft to run machinery to produce electricity which is fed into the National Grid.
Bob Bradley
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