19-11-2020, 03:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 19-11-2020, 04:05 PM by Steve Jones.)
As soon as I saw the photograph, Tony, I thought 'that looks familiar'. I was brought up nearby and remember this private mine from when I was a young boy. I had a pal who lived in one of the next pair of semis in the photo. Pashley's were the local coal merchants. Before we moved out to North Yorkshire 35 years ago, we lived about 500 yards from the site although by then, of course, it was beneath the embankment to the M1.
The village name, Durkar, comes from the previous 'Dirtcar' and the Viking 'Drit Kjarr' meaning Dirt Marsh, a reference to the shallow coal seams. A friend and mining engineer was still taking coal (illegally as it actually belongs to the Crown) from the rear garden of the house he built in the early 1980's around 1/2 mile away until he sold up in about 2000
Steve
The village name, Durkar, comes from the previous 'Dirtcar' and the Viking 'Drit Kjarr' meaning Dirt Marsh, a reference to the shallow coal seams. A friend and mining engineer was still taking coal (illegally as it actually belongs to the Crown) from the rear garden of the house he built in the early 1980's around 1/2 mile away until he sold up in about 2000
Steve