Grade II listed early twentieth-century private colliery headstock and winding house surviving in woodland at Swanwick, Derbyshire.
Swanwick Common Colliery was a small private coal mine sunk in 1903 on land at Swanwick in Amber Valley, Derbyshire, where coal extraction had a recorded history stretching back to the thirteenth century. The shaft was sunk to the Waterloo Seam and the colliery formed part of a broader complex of workings associated with the Morewood family and the Swanwick Colliery Company, which had been mining in the area since the late eighteenth century. Swanwick Common was a small-scale private operation, and it is thought that horizontal underground passages connected it with the larger neighbouring collieries of Swanwick Old Colliery and Swanwick Deep Colliery, both owned by the Morewood family.
Production most likely ceased in the middle of the twentieth century; the site appears as disused on the 1961 Ordnance Survey map. The headstock and winding house survive intact, the latter retaining remnants of electrical switchgear. Both structures were designated Grade II listed buildings in 2023, recognised as exceptionally rare survivors of a private small-scale colliery of this type.
Coal extraction in the Swanwick area has a recorded history dating to the thirteenth century, when a grant of lands and rents to Beauchief Abbey by Sir Thomas Chaworth, lord of Alfreton, included reference to coal. In 1789 the Morewood family of Alfreton acquired a crown lease for what was known as the ancient mine of Swanwick, sometimes called Morewood's Pit. In the early eighteenth century horse gins and whimseys were used in the workings, followed later by steam engines. Following the Enclosure Act, the Palmer-Morewood family began mining operations on what had been Alfreton Common. Between 1851 and 1914 seven shafts were sunk in the area around the developing Swanwick Colliery complex by both the Palmer-Morewood interests and the Swanwick Colliery Company.
Swanwick Common Colliery was one of these shafts. It was first sunk in 1903 to the Waterloo Seam and constituted a small private colliery distinct from, though proximate to, the larger Swanwick operations. It is thought that horizontal underground passages connected the Common shaft with the nearby Swanwick Old Colliery and Swanwick Deep Colliery, both of which were in Morewood family ownership. The coal extracted at Swanwick was regarded as being of superior quality; White's Directory of 1857, describing the broader Swanwick complex, noted that the quality had led others to sell inferior coal under its name in markets where it had not previously been introduced.
Production at Swanwick Common Colliery most likely ended in the middle of the twentieth century. The site appears as disused on the 1961 Ordnance Survey map. The headstock and winding house survived after closure. The winding house retains remnants of the electrical switchgear formerly used to power the winding mechanism. In 2023 the headstock and winding house were designated Grade II listed buildings on the National Heritage List for England. Historic England noted at the time of designation that surviving examples of private small-scale collieries of this type and period are exceptionally rare in England, with no directly comparable surviving example known to the organisation.