page_title: Burnley Coalfield
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Burnley Coalfield / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Castercliff Camp Hillfort One of the many bell pit circles on top of the fort
context_page_description: The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
context_section_description: Coal was exploited in the 13th century at Trawden near Colne where receipts are mentioned in a rent roll from 1295. Coal was also bought at Cliviger. The first coals were extracted at the outcrops before shaft and adit mining were adopted. The coal industry grew in the 16th and 17th centuries, developing from manorial tenants who dug coal for their own use into fixed term leases in return for rent. Coal was mined all around Burnley, mostly from shafts. By 1800, more than a dozen pits had been sunk in central Burnley.
  The arrival of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was a catalyst for industrialisation as was the coming of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway line through Burnley to Colne in 1848. In the 1840s some old small pits such as Cleggs Pit and Habergham closed and larger collieries were sunk at Bank House Colliery, Whittlefield Colliery and the old Fulledge Colliery was redeveloped and linked by a tramway to canal. Tramways came into more common use in the 1880s and several collieries in the town were linked by the system.
  Several collieries were nationalised under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 on vesting day, 1 January 1947. After the 1950s much of the area was opencasted. Coal was opencast at Helm, Royal Zone, Gawthorpe Hall and Tipping Hill. Hill Top Colliery, a very small drift mine near Bacup, was still producing small amounts of coal in 2010.
caption: A collapsed bell pit at Castercliff near Nelson
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