Bradley Colliery

To the south of Skipton, the Warley Wise Grit, named after a farm near Cowling, is probably equivalent to the upper part of the Grassington Grit. The bed’s proximity to the overlying Cravenoceras cowlingense (or Cockhill) Marine Band, which marks the top of the Grassington Grit formation, supports this interpretation.

The Bradley Coal occurs in a bed of dark grey mudstones immediately above a bed of pebbly sandstone, called the Warley Wise Grit. The coal’s outcrop has been worked for more than 1.6 km on Bradley High Moor, where it is up to half a metre thick and dips at between 20° and 30° to the south-east into the Bradley syncline. It also outcrops on the northern flank of the Bradley anticline, on Low Bradley Moor, where it is said to have been 30 inches (0.76m) thick, but when seen near Bradley Mill it had thinned to four inches (0.1m). A good exposure of coal on the southern limb of the anticline at SE01054647, near Crag Top House on Kildwick Moor, does not appear to have been worked.

Gill, M.C. “Great Dales Coalfield, Eastern Areas” British Mining No.86 (2008), pp.68-108