Surviving lattice-steel headframe of the Pozo Peragido, the last colliery to close in the Barruelo coalfield of Palencia, still standing at the site.
The Pozo Peragido is a disused coal mine at Barruelo de Santullán in the Montaña Palentina district of Palencia, Castilla y León, situated beside the arroyo from which it takes its name. It was the last colliery to close in the Barruelo coalfield, finally ceasing operations in September 2005. The site combined two distinct extraction workings: a vertical shaft sunk from 1936 and completed in 1947, reaching 402 metres depth and topped by a lattice-steel headframe 14 metres high; and a later inclined shaft at 17 degrees of gradient and more than 600 metres in length, constructed from 1983 by Hullas de Barruelo (HUBASA) and used for all production from that date.
The vertical shaft headframe is the only metallic structure of this type surviving in the province of Palencia. The installations remain standing more than two decades after final closure, and the site retains its historical significance as the conclusion of more than 160 years of coal mining in the Barruelo basin.
Coal was discovered in the valley of Santullán in 1838 by Ciriaco del Río, the parish priest of Salcedillo, who encountered fragments of black stone on a hillside. The Sociedad Esperanza de Reinosa secured a concession and began extraction at the Barruelo field in 1843. The Pozo Peragido site, on the margin of the arroyo of the same name, lay at a contested boundary between the two principal mining concerns of the Cuenca del Rubagón — the Barruelo operation and the Orbó operation — and changed hands several times during the nineteenth century.
In 1922 the Peragido workings passed to Minas de Barruelo S.A., a subsidiary company formed by the Compañía de Ferrocarriles del Norte to manage its mining interests. In 1935 Minas de Barruelo S.A. drew up the project for a vertical shaft at Peragido, intended to reach 220 metres depth and to be completed within 38 months. Work began on sinking the shaft in 1936, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War brought it to a halt.
Sinking resumed in 1940 but could not be completed until 1947 owing to the wartime disruption and subsequent difficulties in sourcing extraction machinery. During the works the target depth was revised upward and the shaft ultimately reached 402 metres. The winding machinery was relocated from the Pozo Calero, and the pumps and compressors came from the Pozo Rafael.
A lattice-steel headframe was erected above the shaft, with a height of 14 metres, six vertical supports, and three props. The shaft was not brought into operation until 1949, two years after its completion, again due to difficulties with the installation of extraction equipment. In 1966 the Hullera Vasco-Leonesa company took over the Barruelo mining operations, including the Pozo Peragido, and launched an ambitious programme of investment under which a new coal washery was built and new storage buildings and workshops were erected.
Despite this effort, in 1967 the company submitted a crisis filing, triggering the progressive closure of all the vertical shafts in the Barruelo field. The Pozo Peragido was the first to close, in January 1969. The remaining vertical shaft at Barruelo — the Pozo San Rafael — was subsequently closed, and the Pozo Calero followed in 1972.
The Peragido concessions were subsequently sold to Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, which never put them into production. In 1980 the concessions were purchased by Hullas de Barruelo S.A. (HUBASA). HUBASA decided in 1983 to resume extraction without using the old vertical shaft, constructing instead an inclined shaft at 17 degrees of gradient and more than 600 metres in length, situated close to the old vertical workings.
A separate auxiliary adit was also driven nearby. The inclined shaft fed coal in large quantities to a washery, from which it was transported to the central térmica of Velilla del Río Carrión: at peak production, forty lorries of 24 tonnes each left the site daily. In 1999 two additional working sections were opened at the site: the Mina Cocoto, a very old adit-worked section barrenada with hammers and over 100 years old, which served as a heading level; and the Mina Luisa, with 636 metres of gallery and a large concrete loading facility at its entrance.
In 2000 two mechanised cutting machines were installed at Peragido, made possible by HUBASA's success in obtaining a reduction in the official danger classification of the mine from category 4 to category 3, the maximum at which mechanical extraction was permitted. Final closure came in September 2005. The lattice-steel headframe over the old vertical shaft remains standing and is the only metallic headframe structure surviving in the province of Palencia.