Elsecar New Colliery was built in 1795 on land belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam. Plans fo the construction of the Dearne and Dove canal, which opened in 1798, made a new mine a attractive economic prospect (Medlicott 1987, 110). The materials for its construction were largely taken from the Wentworth estate (Medlicott 1998, 153-4). A Newcomen Engine was installed to pump water from the mine and is the only surviving Newcomen engine within its original engine housing (Bayliss 1995, 10). The pump was uneconomical to move regularly so this mine was worked more extensively than earlier mines in the area and was extended further beneath the ground (Medlicott 1998, 158). The pump was replaced in 1923 but brought back into service in 1928 when the electric pumps broke down. The collieries in Elsecar closed in 1983 (Taylor 2001, 122-3). There is no legibility of the enclosed landscape prior to the colliery.