I wanted to survey all the Pit Wheels in the Wakefield District for the Landmarks project. Landmarks
In the Wakefield District, between 1947 and 1994, there were approximately 33 collieries.
These pit wheels represent the winding wheels that collieries used to raise and lower miners down the pit shafts.
They can be seen in a number of locations and for a variety of reasons including; marking the entrance of the site where a colliery used to be, commemorating lives lost by miners whilst working down the mines, celebrating the mining heritage of an area, etc.
Some look like real winding wheels, and others look a lot smaller and appear fabricated for the purpose.
Most are displayed as half sections of the complete circular wheel.
Some are well looked after and others appear neglected. I’m grateful to everyone who answered my call out on social media asking for help in locating these.
Some I knew about already, some I must have passed hundreds of times and never noticed, and others took me to places in the district I hadn’t visited before.
If you click on each photograph it will give you the name of the location and OS map reference number.
tony wade 