ABSTRACT
The exposed coalfield of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire lies roughly to the West of a line drawn from Nottingham to Chesterfield. This is the area where the coal seams basset out on to the surface. Wollaton, Bilborough, Nuthall, Kimberley, Selston, Pinxton and Teversal mark the edge of the outcrop, which extends in the North as far West as the Pennines. All the early coalmines were located on this exposed coalfield. Since the coalfield was worked piece-meal, the average pit tended to be small having a ‘take’ circumscribed by faults, old workings, and competing pits. In 1945, there were still sixty-six collieries with an average labour force of 603 on this exposed coalfield.1
