This covers a number of discontinuous occurrences of the Grassington Grit coal on the north side of Coverdale, between Melmerby and Bradley. It includes Hodgeholes, Bradley Moor, Fleensop and Woodale Foss collieries.
From Pen Hill to Brown Haw, the Grassington Grit, which sits unconformably on Richmond Chert, is changing to a predominantly mudstone series with locally developed coals. Hodgehole Colliery, on Melmerby Moor, worked one of the latter a few metres below the Cockhill Marine Band.
The first edition geological mapping shows an area of coal, designated as Limekiln Coal, immediately to the south of Petticoat Rake, on Bradley Moor in Coverdale. It varied between 18 inches (0.45m) and 21 inches (0.53m) in thickness, whereas most of the ‘Good Coal’ was around 10 inches (0.25m) thick, with one small area reaching two feet (0.6m). At least some of the coal was considered worthless because it had been affected by mineralisation from the nearby veins. A second, unworked, seam, around three inches (0.08m) thick, occurs around six metres above the main coal. On Fleensop Moor, which adjoined to the west, the coal was worked from a series of shafts at Fleensop Colliery. The seam’s position, below the Cockhill Marine Band in the Grassington Grit, shows Tyson’s suggestion that this is the Woogill Coal to be erroneous. The same seam was tried at Woodale Foss Colliery, about 1.6 km to the SSW, where a level was driven in 1794.
Gill, M.C. “Great Dales Coalfield, Eastern Areas” British Mining No.86 (2008), pp.68-108
Spensley, I.M. Mines and Miners of Wensleydale, The author, 2014
