Surface coal was extracted in the Glasshoughton area in 1570. In her journal of 1697, Celia Fiennes wrote that coal pits at Glasshoughton made travelling there dangerous.   A colliery was started at Glasshoughton in 1793 by a Mr Smith, but deep mining as we know it began with the opening of Glasshoughton colliery pictured, in 1869. This colliery closed in 1986.