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One of the quirkier lots sold included pithead gear from a working mineshaft built by Dibnah, bought by a man who wants to set it up at his property.

It is better to burn it at the pithead and transport the electricity thus generated instead.

Barnsley Main colliery eventually took over the workings of the Oaks Colliery, with the surviving engine house and the pithead structures Grade II listed.

Van Gogh drew the pitheads, the simple homes, the miners' potato patches, even, after an underground visit, the coalface itself.

We drive on, though a flat landscape punctuated with slag heaps and pithead gear.