Pit village

A pit village is a term used in the UK for the village around a deep coal mine. Many of the workers lived in houses that were provided by the colliery. Most of the houses are now owned by local authorities as the houses were sold to them when the colliery closed. Many villages seem to be ghost towns as the colliery used to be the heart of the village and people have moved to bigger towns and cities where there are jobs for them to make a living. One of the worst cases of such depopulation was Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire, which has seen around a third of its housing left unoccupied. The village's problems were brought into culture by a song by Chumbawamba and the novel "Nineteen Seventy Four".

The last remaining deep coal mine in North East England was Ellington Colliery which closed in 2005.

The 1939 film "The Stars Look Down", based on the 1935 novel by A.J. Cronin and directed by Carol Reed, is set in the fictitious pit village of Sleescale. The movie was partly shot on location at St Helens Siddick Colliery at Workington in Cumberland. "Billy Elliot" is set in the fictitious pit village of Everington during the miners' strike of 1984-1985. It was shot on location in Easington Colliery which went through the events of 1985. "Brassed Off" was set in the fictional "Grimley", which was only a thin veil for Grimethorpe.