Thanks to National Lottery Players

December highs and lows

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Snow-dusted winter landscape view over the railway line and canal towards Hemingfield from the rear of Hemingfield Colliery in early December 2023
Frosty view, 2nd December 2023

Dead Chillness reigns. And yet my heart would say –
“Winter! I love thee well.” Though birds forlorn
Send no glad anthem from the snowy spray,
Yet gushing melodies are hither borne
From infant Dearne. Drear in the early morn
Ye seem, wild Alpine woods! – that guard this child
Of moorland springs, – ye summer-green, all torn;
Yet, Winter gives a garment undefiled
Of snowflakes light. Joy now the day-beam brings,
And sun-tipp’d gems light up the frozen wild…

Thomas Lister,  ‘Winter Scene [In the wooded valley below Dearne Spring]’,
from The Yorkshire Magazine, Vol.I, no.IV, January 1872, p.121
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Spring ebbs and June’s Summer flows

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June. A beautiful time of year. The first steps of summer, without the school holidays. When the sun’s heat brings plants, people, and other wild-life out into the longer light of day.

Bright blue sky over Hemingfield Colliery - the winding engine and pumping engine houses in the mid-ground, with the colourful flowers of Pump House Cottage in the foreground.
Striking image of light and life at Hemingfield Colliery, June 2023 (Photo credit: Mitchell Sutherland)
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Artful endeavours at Ellis Primary

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Ellis Primary School, Hemingfield, School assembly jn May 2023 with pupils surrounded by artwork. FOHC Volunteer Mitchell Sutherland, School Governor Mark Farnsworth and Artist Fabric Lenny in the centre.
Assembly at Ellis Primary together with FoHC volunteer Mitchell Sutherland, artist Fabric Lenny, School Governor Mark Farnsworth and pupils surrounded by the fantastic artwork (Courtesy Barnsley Museums)

As part of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery’s National Lottery Heritage Fund project Hemingfield’s Hidden History, the group organised a creative heritage activity at the Ellis primary school in Hemingfield village.

Thanks to National Lottery Players for helping to save and safeguard our industrial heritage and engage the next generation.
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Making Hay and a King in May

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Welcome to Pump House Cottage garden

What a month! Mostly highs, with the odd low; new life on site, beautiful weather, a new monarch, and lots of activity from the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, as we completed work on our National Lottery Heritage Fund project Hemingfield’s Hidden History. The project has reunited the colliery site – pumping station and pump house cottage, and enabled a transformation of our understanding of the history and importance of the surviving buildings. Working together with others, we have uncovered more of the stories of the communities around the pit, at Elsecar and Hemingfield, and connected with a new generation of young people on the heritage and biodiversity of the former colliery site today .

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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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Weather on the March 2023

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March 2023 had it all, or almost – Spring threatened to appear at any moment, but Winter certainly reared its frosty head a few mornings – as an early March timelapse of our Pump House Cottage Garden tries to show. As wet weather and cold snaps passed into bright sunshine, so delayed bulbs and buds started to emerge from the shroud of Winter’s sleep.

How many seasons at Pump House Cottage Garden? (Timelapse through snow and shine 4th-12th March 2023)
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Refueling in February

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The restless efforts of the Friends and regular volunteers at Hemingfield Colliery continued in February 2023, with significant progress on small jobs and starts being made on some of the bigger tasks to maintain the site and prepare the way for repairs to take place as the weather improves.

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Twenty twenty-three: starting up

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Foggy light: Elsecar 21st January 2023

A new year and another chance to make further progress on site, saving and sharing our mining heritage. Weather permitting, of course. The Friends demurred on the 14th as the weather was poor, but by the 21st they were eager to meet up and dive into planning activities for the year ahead.

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Levelling up? The Dearne and Dove Canal

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Illustration of the second Cutlers Hall in Sheffield, built 1725, demolished 1832, from Robert Eadon Leader [1839-1922], History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, in the County of York, Volume 1, Sheffield: Pawson & Brailsford, 1905, p.184

At 10 o’clock in the morning, on Wednesday 29th August 1792, the Company of Proprietors of the Navigation of the River Dun held a meeting at the Cutler’s Hall in Sheffield.

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