Progress on Maltby miners memorial

Hargreaves Land has donated £1,000 to the Maltby Miners Memorial Community Group, to help secure a permanent monument to the Maltby Colliery and the thousands of miners that worked there in its 102-year history.

Work on the memorial, which will feature a half-winding wheel and coal tubs from the pit itself within a paved seating area for the local community, is set to begin in April, lasting around 10 weeks.

Lee Weatherall, planning and development manager at Hargreaves Land said: 'This project has been a huge community effort, with individual bricks that will be used in the memorial being bought by ex-miners from around the world, each of whom have written personal messages on them.

'It's testament to how much this mine meant, and still means to people. We're proud to be part of securing this important legacy for future generations.'

At its peak, Maltby Colliery, which closed in 2013, employed 2,500 local people, and its existence led to the transformation of the South Yorkshire town from a small farming hamlet to a community of 17,000.

Chairman of The Maltby Miners Memorial Community Group, Bill Spilsbury said: 'Let me say a massive thanks to Hargreaves Land for donating the £1,000 to the memorial fund. It's a huge boost. 

'We started this project because we were of the opinion that, unless something was done, the colliery would become forgotten as other industries in Maltby, and it's a community that owes a lot to the mine.

'We're now in a position to commence the build in April 2019 after a lot of help from local businesses, not least Hargreaves, who also helped us erect a memorial to 27 men who perished in a 1923 explosion that took place at the pit.'

To find out more visit maltbyminersmemorialcg.weebly.com,