Housing in Ollerton

The village of New Ollerton was built by the Butterley Company in the early 1920s to correspond with the sinking of the pit in 1923. The pit was finally finished in 1926, during the 1926 General Strike, a nine-day strike to try and prevent wage reductions across various transport and heavy industry sectors. The pit remained one of the largest in the area until its closure in 1994.

The village itself was the first built by the Butterley Company specifically for a colliery. Their previous collieries all had existing villages but were extended to provide more housing for their workers. Henry Eustace Mitton, an agent for the Butterley Company, oversaw a lot of the planning. The actual housing was looked after by the Butterley Housing Company Ltd, a subsidiary company, which specifically dealt with the housing provided for employees of the Butterley Company. This photograph is an example of some of that housing.