Early references to coal & coal mining in Notts
Coal at Nottingham Castle
Arthur Stapleton, in his An Historical Sketch of the Caves of Old Nottingham and The Nottinghamshire Coalfield: some notes regarding its ancient history (1904) notes that the earliest reference to the local use of coal comes from the "Annales de Dunstable" in the year 1257. Henry III left his Queen, Eleanor of Provence, at Nottingham whilst he visited Chester, but she "found it impossible to stay there by reason of the smoke from the sea coal"
Was this smoke drifting up from the town, or from defective flue arrangements in the castle itself?
Some years later, in 1307, the castle accounts show a charge of 5s. 4d. for ten loads of "carbomaritimus" or sea coal.