WE Nightingale, the father of Florence Nightingale owned the mineral rights in the Pleasley Colliery area (on the Derbyshire side of the river Meden).
Florence herself is reputed to have turned the first sod, although no record of this event has been found so far.
One of the shafts (believed to be the North) was referred to as the “Florence Pit” and the other as the “Nightingale Pit” in a newspaper report on the final completion of the sinking in 1879.
