tarboat's photos with the keyword: beehive

The 6 inch OS map surveyed in 1849/50 shows a series of coal pits on the moors north of Edgworth within Blackburn & Darwen. These are marked as comprising Broad-head Colliery and central to these workings are a series of beehive coke ovens to convert the small coal from the workings. By the late 19th century the pits were long abandoned and today can be identified by their collapsed shafts and associated spoil tips. The colliery remains and coke ovens are a scheduled ancient monument but this does not seem to mean that there is much chance of their preservation. What is left of the coke ovens are the fused shell and inner linings standing out of the moor as they slowly decay and disintegrate. A lonely place, which probably accounts for the survival of these few bits.

The 6 inch OS map surveyed in 1849/50 shows a series of coal pits on the moors north of Edgworth within Blackburn & Darwen. These are marked as comprising Broad-head Colliery and central to these workings are a series of beehive coke ovens to convert the small coal from the workings. By the late 19th century the pits were long abandoned and today can be identified by their collapsed shafts and associated spoil tips. The colliery remains and coke ovens are a scheduled ancient monument but this does not seem to mean that there is much chance of their preservation. What is left of the coke ovens are the fused shell and inner linings standing out of the moor as they slowly decay and disintegrate. A lonely place, which probably accounts for the survival of these few bits.

Seen in a garden at Alport. This is clearly a good place to sit and watch what is going on all around.

Demand from the Sheffield steel industry led to the development of a significant coking industry in north Derbyshire in the later nineteenth century. The use of beehive coke ovens persisted even after the development of more efficient bye-product recovery ovens due to the steelmakers believing that the product of the beehive non-recovery system was superior. Summerley Colliery at Unstone was sunk in 1871 and operated only until 1884. Coal was coked in two back-to-back banks each of 24 beehive ovens and these continued in use until 1921. Today the ovens survive and are listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, but this has not resulted in much care and maintenance of the structure which is in poor condition and has been damaged by trees. This view shows the roof of one of the ovens and the fused firebrick due to the high temperatures achieved during the coking process.