Dry spots in June

Warm weather continued into June, as nature’s pollinators revelled in their constant gardening on site.

Ostensibly a quietish month as we plan for the Autumn open days and await permissions for restoration work on our scheduled monument site and the listed Pump House Cottage.

Again, we are exceptionally grateful to South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation for their support this year which has helped us with site insurance to open for visits and prepare displays and activities with our volunteers.

South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation

And that said – plenty to report, both good and bad as you will see!

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Opening up

Late March ran rapidly into into April as the Friends held their first full Open Day of the year in 2025: Easter Sunday. It was a lovely day, with perhaps the best of the Sunny weather over the long bank holiday weekend. But the volunteers had been kept busy in the weeks building up to the open day itself as you will see.

South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation

Once again we owe a huge thanks to South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation in supporting our activities on site, without them this year we would not have been able to hold an Open Day.

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All creatures…

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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2024 into 2025. Autumn Fantasia and the long winter.

2025 is here. There’s no denying. But the weather outside has been less-than-delightful, so we’re starting off by looking back – A more detailed catch-up from Autumn of 2024, with late touches of Winter frost which somewhat delayed the start of 2025.

But first, a great big thank you!

Getting festive with volunteers from the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, 21st December 2024

To all our volunteers, visitors, supporters and friends. Without your support the Friends would not be able to keep doing their great work in maintaining and sharing the colliery site and its stories with the wider public.

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Summery stamina, July and August 2024

Our regular volunteers definitely made the best of a bad summer, visiting site on the 13th, 20th, and 27th July, and 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 31st August.

Headgear between the heavens and the earth, 5th July 2024

We also had some special visitors on Friday 5th July, and Weds 21st August but more of that anon…

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June

Unfriendly weather, but not entirely dull. No sign of summer sun. June was the summer-free month, uninterrupted by good weather. Volunteers were on site sporadically throughout, on the 1st, 8th, 22nd and 29th June. Inbetween them came rain and cloud. Frequently. Unreasonably unseasonal weather kept us away, and yet it proved to be a very memorable month as you will read.

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Celebrating 10 years – remembering the first steps

In this special Anniversary post, Chair of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, Steve Grudgings shares the first selection of reflections on a decade of challenges, progress and change at Hemingfield.

Celebrating 10 years of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery
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December highs and lows

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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No-vember

November, the awkward month; no longer light, no proper time of day. The harbinger of winter gloom and colder comforts, but with festive frolics to follow. And yet, through it all, the volunteers’ job is never done. The Friends of Hemingfield Colliery are friends for all seasons!

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Open days and open minds in April, 2023

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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