a short while ago I happened to be at M1 Junction 29 ( Chesterfield turn-off ) and it crossed my mind that in the early 80s I worked on a ventilation shaft for a small private coal mine, Doe Lea.

the original yard, on the West side of the M1, now appears to be a haulage yard

the vent shaft was in a farmer's field, covered by a small stone building ( which caused all sorts of headaches with the Peak Park people ) and if I recall correctly, was on the Clay Cross road - I remember turning off the M1, turning for Clay Cross, passing back under the motorway and up a farm access

anyone recall this, or know anything about it?

the vent shaft was lined with pre-cast concrete segments and about 8ft in diameter, from recollection there were 20 rings which would make it 40 ft deep. It had a ladder and a landing partway up. I believe the size was determined by the available segments, which were bought secondhand ( very cheaply ) from the Don Valley Interceptor Sewer project in Sheffield

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In the early 80`s I did some work for a company in Derbyshire called SPO minerals who I believe were the owners of Doe Lea, they eventually went bust, and I dont know what happened to the mine after that.

a quick internet search of "SPO Minerals" turns up the information that in the early 1970s they were involved in an operation at Baslow, loading barytes recycled from old lead mine workings for use in the offshore drilling industry

there is also a Planning Committee document from 2007 referring to a possible resumption of former recycling operations at the site of Doe Lea Colliery, so that's presumably what subsequently happened to the main yard.

the shaft was sunk in the early 80s, I remember it because it was the first mining job I did after coming off the drilling side

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I clearly remember the SPO company (Southern Pennine Ore company) operating in the Peak District, I didn't know about the company owning Doe Lea Colliery, they had the processing plant at Rhyder Point above the Via Gellia which was involved in the fluorspar bonanza of the late 1970's and early 1980's (see my posting on Tearsall). A fancy report was produced about the so called hugh ore deposit beneath the Southern Pennines which of course included the Peak District. (My copy of it was deposited at the Derbyshire Records Office in 2000). If I remember correctly the chief executive was a certain Ameircan gentleman who lived in a beautiful black and white timbered Listed Grade One manor house dating back to about the 1400's (from memory) at Marston Montgomery,miles south of the Peak District which was being ravished at the time for fluorspar. I also remember vaguely that the company received a very large grant from the World Bank and at a later date conveniently went into liquidation. I also think this person and his company had dealing with mines in Cornwall about the same time, I can only plead that my memory is deterioating with about a thirty year timegap so I can't be sure about Cornwall, but it sticks in my mind.

interesting stuff.

I briefly worked on flourspar and barytes extraction in the Peaks when I first came out of Cornwall in the mid-to-late 70s. If I remember rightly, some of it went to British Steel? I saw a lot of the barytes later, working as a derrickman in the North Sea, but flourspar was I think, usd for steel-making

the Doe Lea shaft was sunk in the early 80s and I did hear at the time, that it was never paid for, the company going bust instead.

looking on Google Earth, the former site of Doe Lea portal is derelict ( from recollection it was a drift mine ), and there is a possible small derelict industrial site in the corner of a field about 2.1km WSW which may be the site of the shaft building

another thing I do recall is that the building had all manner of details, slate roof, cladding, etc but the farmer was building a generic machinery shed a few hundred metres away which wasn't covered because it was an agricultural building... 😞

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The american guy was called Bob Sprinkel, who made a pile of money out of getting Wheal Jane back up and running.
SPO Minerals poached a lot of guys from Weardale, with the promises of big wages, sadly this didn`t last long.

Correct, I remembered his name but didn't like to mention him by name. I knew he was involved in Cornwall as well as Derbyshire but I couldn't remember the details. He seemed to con a lot of people (especially the World Bank) to obtain money which explains why he lived in such a beautiful old house in the Appletree Hundred of the county of Derby, many miles from where his company was working in the Peak District.

On reflection I got it wrong, wasn't it Dresser Minerals that had the processing plant at Rhyder Point at Hopton, and SPO used the surface buildings further west at Golconda lead mine, Brassington? Incidently the head of Dresser Minerals phoned me (in the early 1980's) to ask me why I was objecting to their planning application to put a dragline in on Low Mine at Bonsall for the extraction of fluorspar. At the time I was trying to restore a beautiful old run-down Listed Grade 2 Georgian house in Bonsall, it was situated at the end of the "Great Rake" on which the Low mine was situated, and everytime blasting took place in the "Big Hole" at the top of Masson Hill, this lovely old house dating back to possibly the 1600'a and definately the 1700's (it's name was Sycamore House) which was stone built of double skinned, rubble filled walls, shuddered to it's foundations, cracks (which we monitored) were opening up all over the place, and apart from all the other legal objections against Dresser's mining on Low mine, I was worried about the effect on my house and also many others in the village. This chief executive asked me if I had coal fires in my home, I told him that I did (most of the fireplaces incidently were built of the local beautiful polished crincoid [sea lilies] fossilised Derbyshire limestone - a good example of this fossilised limestone is found the entrance floor at the "Bull's Head", Monyash). "Well" he said "I live in the Vale of Bevoir, where it is intended to open a new coal mine, I along with my neighbours am fighting very hard to stop this mine being opened it will spoil the very beautiful countryside around us. With your views on conservation, that means you wouldn't burn any coal from this pit if it was opened". My reply was that I would very happily burn as much coal from the pit as possible as it would give work to local miners in the area, and would give him a taste of his own medicine, and he might then experience what a lot of the Peak District was then experiencing without controlled planning consents. He rang off very abruptly.

Yep you are right,Dressers were at hopton and SPO at Golconda, interestingly the manager at Dressers had been the manager of the Weardale Lead Company operations until SAMUK took them over.

found a reference dated from 2007, relating to mining subsidence of up to 4.5m in the Doe Lea valley ( context is the Chesterfield Canal restoration project )

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I worked for SPO for a couple of years, most of what I have read above is probably true.

Doe Lea was bought as a "cash cow" to keep SPO afloat, probably went there a couple of times.

Anyone else work there?

When I worked at Glapwell in the '50s the Doe lea pit or "dominics'" as it was popularly known was a going concern employing around 30 men. The manager was Dominic Lavin(385) who was also I believe the owner.The seam being worked was the Top hard seam and was not worked by Glapwell because of an upthrow fault and several smaller faults. The coal was got by means of headings, a form of the old stall and pillar work by teams of two men and the old Siskol compressed air machine to under cut the seam. Hand loaded into tubs which were got in and out of the heading by the two workers. I had some mates who went to give it a try when the wages at Glapwell were non too good but they did not stay for long. There was an occasion when the mines inspector and one of the pit officials lost their lives when they encountered blackdamp in one of the roadways they were examining and it was rumoured, although with no foundation, that when Ramcroft closed old Dominic "borrowed" some of the machinery that was left behind. Probably untrue but a thought anyway.!!

I went to Doe Lea in the early 1980's. At that time it was owned by the Great Row Colliery Company of Newcastle, Staffs.
I can't remember who actually owned them at that time but they had a succesion of 'owners', though day to day management remained the same. I never worked at Doe Lea but was offered a job at Apedale Colliery in Staffordshire instead.
I too have heard the story about retrieved equipment whilst I was working at nearby Arkwright Colliery. The source there had been an official at Ramcroft at closure. I believe there was some truth in the story but only for small tools and things like telephones and some cables. Some of the items may well have made their way overland too, rather than been collected from abandoned workings......
Doe Lea would have had no use for modern equipment like conveyors or face machines, they never used anything like that.

Ahh ! my old dad was the manager at Doe Lea but his leg was giving him jip from when it was broken in about 3 places after the roof fell in and buried him at Thurcroft colliery back in his early years. So he then became the mine consultant because it was too much to walk up the drift every day.

If my memory serves me right, the coal part of the business was not seperate from the other parts. When the mineral side went bust, the pit went with it.

The old boy was somewhat upset by the closure. I suppose there was still a lot of coal to be won. He was the manager at Denby Hall when that was closed and he said there was still years of coal down there.

Somewhere I've got a sale catalogue for SPO when it folded, thinks it's probably just the mill equipment & details of mineral leases. May take some finding.

When I worked at Doe-Lea for 10 years untill they sacked us all at the start of the dispute,that was SPO coal that did that.The pit made a very healthy profit before they got their hands on it,before SPO they shared profits with the workforce and by means of a monthly attendance bonus which was a good incentive as there were only 27 men working there and if some did'nt attend then production and wages would suffer.
There was a tunnel that was blocked off when I was there that went through to Ramscroft and as stated earlier we would'nt have use for most of the machinery as almost all the winches,engines and drilling was run on compressed air.I remember on the outbye drift there was a full manriding tram abandoned years before but could never work out its route as it did'nt fit in with anything in the position it was in and was too large to be used in the mine :confused: