birds

All creatures…

/ The Friends of Hemingfield Colliery (FoHC) / Leave a comment
Pump House Cottage Garden, Saturday 15th March 2025 (Photo credit: Paul Moon)

Regular volunteers Paul, Janet & Jeff and Andy were on site on Saturday 15th March 2025. Thanks to support from South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation we can open the gates and operate on site with volunteers and members of the public. 

Spring time tidying was very much the order of the day, clearing the garden flower beds and paths of Pump House Cottage. So much for the flora. As for the fauna, scarcely a minute had passed on site before a kestrel was spotted high up on the main headgear.

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Open days and open minds in April, 2023

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A low-level drone side view of Hemingfield Colliery site, at the top of the photograph a range of buildings fill the shot, the old pumping engine house on the left, the winding engine house in the middle, and roofless surface haulage building to the right. In the foreground the canal basin can be seen through trees, and in the middle across the picture is the line of the railway, currently out of use.
Chimney smoke rises as the Friends seek shelter on Easter Monday, 10th April 2023 (Photo Credit: Simon Hollis)

April 2023 saw a host of activities on site, as the weather tried, time after time, to confound and confuse. For the Friends it was a month of Open Days at Easter; of gardening and tidying, and of preparation for better days to come, or at least better weather on the many working days to come.

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August company – Happy days at Hem in 2022

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2022 was quickly passing away in August as the Friends and regular volunteers pressed forth on improving the appearance of the site, both inside and out. Enjoying the uncommonly great weather, and ignoring the Westminster political hustings dragging on around the country, as talk of energy crises continued, and the War in Ukraine rumbled painfully on.

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Bank Holiday Balm, Saturday 28th August 2021

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Sunny days. Approaching the pit in August sun

Coming as something of a blessed relief, the sun finally made an appearance on the last Saturday in August, as the Friends, volunteers and a select band of visitors foregathered at Hemingfield Colliery.

In the near distance the sounds of late harvesting echoed across the valley: the constant hum of a combine reaping, threshing, and winnowing the golden fields. A propitious start to the day.

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Flat out – volunteer work at Hemingfield

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Chasing the clouds away. The main headgear at Hemingfield Colliery

Sun shine after the rain

After a week of, well let’s say ‘changeable’ weather, the Friends and regular core volunteers were keen to recoup some of the time lost to site maintenance since March and the beginning of the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this an extra Saturday when the weather looked set fair was seized on 11th July to continue the weeding, cleaning and tidying the site so that it is back in good order for what the future may bring as the world, or the UK at least, takes its first steps back towards a new normal.

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