In 1912 the Bolsover Colliery Company leased 6,000 acres of mining rights form the Duke of Portland. A test bore found the 6ft Tophard seam of coal at a depth of 640yd. At the outbreak of war in 1914 the work on sinking of the shaft was suspended at a depth of 50 ft but the surface buildings such as the winding house were completed. The railway branch line reached the pit in 1916 with a short spur to serve the army camp. In 1919 work on the shaft recommenced and by 1922 two 21ft diameter shafts had been completed.

Production on the Tophard seam began in 1927. A serious underground fire occurred in 1932. The fire was so bad that the district had to be sealed off using 2000 tons of sand and 35,000 bricks. In the early days the only holidays  were Christmas, Whit Monday and Good Friday. The first one-week paid holiday was granted in 1936.

Despite the collieries unbroken profit-making record it was closed and mothballed in 1993. Re-opened in 1994 in finally closed in 2003.

The headstocks erected as part of the modernisation from 1947 to 1963 are the tallest all metal headstocks in the country. Together with a lot of the colliery buildings they are ‘listed’.