71 - Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

The landform of the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield National Character Area (NCA) is a plateau with unrestricted views of low ridges and shallow valleys, a characteristic shared with the neighbouring Leicestershire Vales NCA in the south. The River Mease Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) forms part of the boundary with the Mease/Sence Lowlands NCA to the south-west. To the east the land rises steeply, affording views out across the Charnwood NCA, a result of the Thringstone Fault that limits the eastern extent of the Coal Measures that underlie the majority of the NCA and forms an abrupt boundary with Charnwood NCA. Ancient woodland straddles part of the boundary in the north, where the land falls away affording views of the wooded rolling landscape of the Melbourne Parklands NCA.

The NCA is drained by the relatively unmodified, fast-flowing rivers Mease and Sence and their tributaries, which have a diverse range of channel features, including riffles, pools and slacks. The area forms part of a regional watershed between the River Mease to the south and the River Soar to the east; both rivers join the River Trent, which discharges to the North Sea via the Humber Estuary. Both the River Mease and the River Soar join the River Trent via the Trent Valley Washlands NCA. Many minor, swift-flowing streams drain the area, for example Saltersford Brook and Rothley Brook. The Sherwood Sandstone aquifer occurs at depth and locally at the surface in the central, western and north-western areas. It provides base flow to the rivers and augments supplies of potable water outside the area, including for use in the brewing industry at Burton upon Trent in the neighbouring Trent Valley Washlands NCA. Thornton Reservoir, a semi-redundant water supply reservoir, augments water levels downstream of the dam via Rothley Brook, a tributary of the River Soar that flows through Charnwood NCA.

The area has a developing woodland character that is heavily influenced by the regeneration initiative of The National Forest that covers the majority of the NCA and which aims to link the remnant ancient forest landscapes of Melbourne Parklands NCA in the north with those of Charnwood NCA in the east and Needwood and South Derbyshire Claylands NCA in the west.

The NCA has good road and air connections. The north-south- A42, A444, A447 and M1, and East Midlands Airport, are nearby in the east and north respectively. The A511 is the principal east-west route. The Ivanhoe Way and the Leicestershire Round – a 100-mile circular walk around the county of Leicestershire – and the multi-use recreational routes associated with The National Forest offer a wide network of trails and footpaths. The Ashby Canal also provides an important link with the wider area.

The Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield today

The Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield landform is characterised by a repeating sequence of mudstones and sandstones with seatearths and coal seams, which strongly influences both the physical and cultural patterns of the landscape. Part of the South Derbyshire Coalfield has the largest reserves of seatearths or fireclays in England. Ironstone is found as nodules in the mudstone bands and these have been extensively worked. The sequence is easily weathered, which creates a gently undulating landscape with the sandstone beds forming ridges that become less pronounced towards the south where there are locally thick, deep deposits of glacial till.

Lower Coal Measures crop out around Ashby-de-la-Zouch and fireclays, which were the basis of the pottery industry centred on Swadlincote, crop out between Swadlincote and Moira. In the concealed southern section of the coalfield there are extensive deposits of clay suitable for the manufacture of bricks and tiles. The Thringstone Fault limits the extent of the coalfield in the east and defines an abrupt boundary with the Precambrian rocks of Charnwood NCA.

This is a landscape in continuing transformation, in part assisted by the regeneration initiative of The National Forest – from an unenclosed rolling landform that was extensively scarred by abandoned collieries, spoil tips and quarries, to a matrix of developing woodland, restored colliery sites, active brick pits and commercial developments that are woven into an essentially rural landscape, with a mix of small hamlets and former mining settlements.

The area has a developing woodland character heavily influenced by The National Forest initiative that covers the majority of the NCA. The wooded character comprises locally dense areas of riparian woodland and prominent amenity trees around settlements, with developing woodland plantations on former colliery sites. In the north-east, around Coleorton and Newbold, mining has left a legacy of small pasture fields, overgrown hedges, frequent hedgerow trees and small copses. Coleorton Hall hosts the large ancient woodland site of Rough Park.

Hedgerows enclose small to medium-sized fields, with a wide variation in field pattern reflecting a diverse history of enclosure and more recent open cast working. Very irregular fields bounded by mixed-species hedgerows containing holly, hawthorn, hazel and field maple mark ancient enclosure. Early enclosure of medieval open fields also tends to show an irregular field pattern, some still featuring the narrow, curved fields that preserve the strips of the open field system.

The NCA forms part of the regional watershed between the River Mease to the south and the River Soar to the east, with many minor, swift-flowing streams draining the area. The River Mease SSSI and SAC comprises the lower reaches of the Gilwiskaw Brook downstream of Packington, and the River Mease downstream of its confluence with the Gilwiskaw Brook; these are special as they are relatively unmodified, lowland rivers and support internationally important populations of spined loach and bullhead fish and nationally important populations of native white-clawed crayfish, otter and water crowfoot. There are many flooded clay pits and deep mining has resulted in subsidence pools or flashes that have become valuable assets for recreation and biodiversity and are within easy reach of large settlements. The largest area of open water is at Thornton, a semi-redundant reservoir that is important for nature conservation and recreation.

The majority of the NCA has good/fair quality soils in terms of their productivity. The predominance of mudstone in the underlying geology tends to give rise to slowly permeable soils. Fine clayey gley soils that are waterlogged in the winter months are the most widespread, with free-draining brown earths occurring over the rare, thicker sandstone beds. Agriculture comprises a mixture of arable and mixed sheep and beef units and, to a lesser extent, dairy. Combinable crops are grown on the freer-draining soils. Potatoes are grown in rotation on the heavier soils around Measham and Packington. Areas of semi-natural lowland meadow habitat are few and fragmented.

Areas of acid grassland occur over sandstone while neutral grassland occurs on the deeper soil in the valleys. Lowland heathland was once widespread across the coalfield but has largely been lost to past mining activities and agricultural expansion, although there is some re-naturalisation of colliery spoil to heath. Open Mosaic Habitats on Previously Developed Land, for example at colliery sites and areas where soil has been removed or severely modified, provide priority habitat for invertebrates and early succession plant communities.

The older settlement pattern is one of small villages and hamlets with buildings clustered around a church. This is dominated by the 19th- and 20th-century former mining villages and small towns with a dense settlement pattern of characteristic terraced houses of red brick, for example Coalville and Swadlincote. Ashby-de-la-Zouch, with the remains of its medieval castle, retains the character of a small market town. The open aspect of the landscape around Ashby and the remains of the castle were the setting for Sir Walter Scott’s historic novel Ivanhoe.

In an open landscape, the settlements are prominent and urban-fringe expansion – developments of warehousing, light industrial units and large out-of-town retail outlets – is making an increasing visual impact on the landscape.

There are good connections to the road network: Coalville and Ashby-de-la- Zouch have direct links to the M1 and in the west the M42/A42 links south to Birmingham and north to the M1. A network of minor roads connects the numerous villages.

The area has a dense network of footpaths across farmland connecting settlements and outlying farmsteads and a number of long-distance paths, for example Ivanhoe Way and the Leicestershire Round – a 100-mile circular walk around the county of Leicestershire. The National Forest Company promotes a number of walks that link new woodlands with former industrial sites and nature reserves, for example Coal Tips to Country Parks walks and The National Forest trail that is in development.

The industrial archaeological interest of coal, iron and fireclay mines, surface workings, cottages, tramways and visitor attractions, for example Moira Furnace, the Snibston Discovery Museum and the Ashby Canal, are forming the basis of a developing visitor economy. The National Forest is creating positive change and environmental enhancement with recreational and educational activities close to population centres, for example Conkers Discovery Centre.

The landscape through time

The Pennine Coal Measures of the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield were laid down during the Carboniferous Period, in warm, swamp-like rainforest conditions, around 300 to 318 million years ago, producing frequent coal seams.

The area can be divided geologically into two sections: a northern section, where the Coal Measures are exposed; and a southern section, where they are concealed beneath the Triassic Mercia Mudstone Group and the sandstones and conglomerate of the Sherwood Sandstone Group of the Early Triassic Period. These sediments form the Sherwood Sandstone aquifer, the second most important in England. The Mercia Mudstone Group was deposited mainly as dust in a widespread, flat desert area. Periodic rainstorms produced flash floods that deposited thin beds of siltstone and fine-grained sandstone. Gypsum also occurs in these beds.

Superficial deposits comprise both till and glacio-fluvial sand and gravel. They were deposited approximately 440,000 years ago and occur mainly around Ibstock, west of Packington and north of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Evidence of Roman settlement is limited to the buried artefacts near Ravenstone that include the remains of a pottery and tile kilns. References to heathland in place names throughout the area, for example Normanton Le Heath, suggest that the wildwood that covered most of Britain had been cleared at an early date in prehistory. However, place names like Willesley indicate that there were still considerable areas of woodland during Anglo-Saxon occupation, while the ton and worth names are evidence of settlements dating from that time. The thorps in place names, for example Donisthorpe, are legacies of Viking occupation during the 9th and early 10th centuries. By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the area was still sparsely populated. Settlements were separated by large areas of open common heath for grazing and in some cases by extensive deer parks and chases.

There were medieval parks at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and the remains of the 12th century manor house, which became a castle in the 15th century, serve as a reminder of the town’s long history. Much of the area appears to have been open common, particularly in the north. In the areas suitable for cultivation, the open fields that developed during the Middle Ages were mainly enclosed before the end of the 16th century.

Mining has significantly changed this landscape through time. Evidence shows that coal was being mined in Swannington as far back as 1293. By 1520 there were five pits there and active mining at Newbold, Oakthorpe and Coleorton, with Measham becoming active in the following century.

With the invention of steam power in the 18th century, industry developed considerably in the area and by the 19th century an expanding transport network, with the construction of the Ashby Canal and its tramways, opened up the area around Moira where coal, fireclay, and lime from the nearby Ticknall and Dimminsdale lime quarries were extracted. Later in the century this transport network enabled expansion to several other areas, including deep mines in the concealed coalfield at Hugglescote, Ellistown, Nailstone and Desford. Coal mining, lime working, a blast furnace and a spa developed at Moira, the evidence now preserved in a museum complex on the site.

In a traditionally sparsely populated area, mining has heavily influenced the settlement pattern. The older pattern, of small villages and hamlets with buildings clustered around a church, began to be dominated by the 19th- and 20th-century mining villages with blocks of terraced miners’ cottages built of red brick, with tile or slate roofs. Frequent, isolated groups of cottages along the roadsides and new mining towns were built, for example Coalville, while previously small hamlets like Snibston and Hugglescote were enlarged to accommodate an influx of miners. Mining subsidence has been a continual problem over the years throughout the area. In recent years, pumping water from the abandoned coal mines has ceased. Water levels have risen and polluted water is now flowing out into the surface rivers. A side effect of this has seen the ground starting to rise rather than subside.

During the 20th century the brick-making industry expanded in the southern part of the area, notably around Ibstock, and extensive open cast mines developed. The closure of deep coal mines led to large-scale unemployment and the development of a rather neglected character to the mining villages and a landscape scarred by tips of deep mines, abandoned colliery sites, tramways and open cast sites. The last mine to close in the area was at Bagworth, in 1991.

Expansion to commercial agriculture during the 20th century resulted in larger field sizes, enabling cultivation by larger, heavier machinery. Good links to the road network assist the distribution and processing of food – for example, there is a potato processing and packing plant located close to the A42 near Measham.

During the 21st century The National Forest has been transforming the landscape, reclaiming derelict land and abandoned colliery sites. Flooded clay pits have become sites of ecological importance, while some former colliery sites and clay pits are now local nature reserves and country parks providing recreational amenities close to populated areas. The infrastructure of industry is now forming the basis of a developing visitor economy, with visitor and heritage centres – for example, at Conkers and Snibston. The brick-making industry remains important to the area as evidenced by the recent expansion of a factory at Measham, with estimated clay reserves of 25 years.

The rate of change to urban areas is high. There has been significant urban development around Swadlincote and east of Ellistown. To the north of the old market town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Coalville there are prominent warehouses for industrial and commercial distribution, and the modern brickwork sites at Ibstock and Measham also have large industrial buildings. The northern bypass around Ashby, the M42 and good links to the M1 and to East Midlands Airport mean that ribbon development is likely to continue. The challenge to finance the management of both woodland and sites of heritage and ecological importance is likely to increase. Schemes such as Payments for Ecosystem Services, and the development of markets and supply chains for wood as a by-product of forestry management and ‘developer contribution schemes’, may provide sources of revenue to sustain the management of these sites.

Mining subsidence has been a continual problem and in recent years pumping water from the abandoned coal mines has ceased – as a consequence, the ground has started to rise rather than subside and water levels are higher with the potential for pollution to surface waters.