Sheffield Independent – Saturday 18 May 1889
Denaby Main Colliery.
The New Pit.
Rapid progress is being made in connection with the new pit at Conisbro ‘ which is being sunk by the Denahy Main Colliery Company.
Two shafts are being rank to the Barnsley bed, which is here about 10ft. thick and about 600 yards.
At Denaby, which pit was sunk in 1863, coal was reached at 460 yards from the surface. ,As is well- known, the Barnsley seam becomes deeper the further east you go. Between Denaby and Conisbro’ it dips about 1 in 10. At and about Doncaster the thick deposit will probably be met with at a depth of from 660 to 670 yards. Up the two 16ft. shafts that are being sunk the company hope to be able to draw no less than 4000 tons of coal a day, or twice the Denaby Main output.
The machinery that is being manufactured for the new colliery includes two pairs of 45-inoh cylinder winding engines, each with a 7ft. stroke. The driving drums are to be 30ft. in diameter, and will draw in 30 yards of rope at every revolution. It is intended to raise three tons of coal up each shaft in 45 seconds, and to load and unload the corves by hydraulic machinery in 10 seconds. Thus, allowing a margin of five seconds, the cage will ascend once every minute, bringing up 180 tons per hour, or a total of 4000 and odd tons from the two shafts in an ordinary working day, and making the aggregate quantity of coal with which the company can furnish its customers all over the world 6000 tons per diem.
The Denaby Main Colliery finds employment for 1500 men and boys ; between 2500 and 3000 miners will be required to work the Cadeby pit at Conisbro’. The sinking contractors have got a large staff of men at work, and one of the shafts is already 15 feet or 18 feet deep. Foundations for the temporary engines to be used in sinking are being put in, newly constructed kilns are preparing lime, stone is being got from a neighbouring quarry, and plant to make from 15,000 to 20,000 bricks a day has been ordered.
A siding has been specially laid by the company from the site of the colliery to the boundary of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, with which system it will shortly be connected. Borings ace also in progress on the estate of Sir Wm. Cooks, at Bentley, two miles east of Doncaster, and it is said that upon an estate of no less than 5000 acres in this neighbourhood a start is likely to be made with working the Barnsley seam, which in many places about Doncaster is believed to be 8ft. or 9ft. feet.
The entire area of the Doncaster field, which includes Asker, is estimated at 16 miles long and 14 broad, and it is credited with containing 17 seams of workable coal, the total quantity available from the formations in Doncaster and the adjoining districts being, according to one authority, no less than 9676 millions of tons.
It is reported, further, that this new movement is to be extended to Finningley, where the results of borings are said to be most encouraging, and that Lincolnshire will be laid under tribute at no distant date.