SE3800 : Overgrown footpath
taken 11 years ago, near to Elsecar, Barnsley, England
The original incline connected pits at Platts Common and Jump to the Dearne and Dove Canal just north of Elsecar. The top end later developed as Hoyland Silkstone Collieries (working the Silkstone seam), and a loading point on the Elsecar branch railway was introduced at some stage.
With the coming of the Midland Railway through Hoyland and Elsecar in 1895, a connection was made meeting the incline to the west of Wentworth Road. The 1930 edition of the OS 1:2500 shows the incline dismantled from this point down to the canal, although the upper part of the inclined remained. The colliery appears to have closed by around 1950, the 1956 1:10000 showing the upper part of the incline as dismantled.
Today, much of the lower part of the incline is followed by public footpaths. Most of the middle part is walkable, although recent landscaping has removed all traces of earthworks, including the embankment which carried the connection from the Midland Railway across Wentworth Road, and the cutting approach to the bridge under Greenside Lane.
Between Greenside Lane and the former Hoyland Silkstone Colliery site the alignment has been overbuilt with housing, and the colliery site is now the Platts Common Industrial Estate.
A former local resident writes:
"Jump Valley
I lived in Jump Valley in the old Jump Pit converted stable buildings from 1942 with my grandparents. Across from us was the old winding house complete with mineshaft just covered in railway sleepers
There was the 'line' which had been a railway and a lane running parallel down to Elsecar
I understand that the whole area has been filled now but I have many happy memories of that time."