ABSTRACT
Since coal is a bulky commodity, transport costs form a major part of the delivered price. In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the small ‘land-sale’ pits to the North of Nottingham, like Selston, Skegby, Teversal and Heath served a purely local market. Insofar as they expanded at all, they expanded slowly in response to the general increase in population in small towns like Mansfield, Sutton-in-Ash-field, Alfreton and Hucknall Torkard. The Morrisons of Selston, it is true, operated iron mills in the sixteenth century and these consumed some locally produced coal as did the lime-kilns of Teversal. But industrial demand was small,1 and the pits often stood idle in winter when the roads were muddy.
