Colsterdale

1) This is a dale in Mashamshire and the place-name is on record from the twelfth century.

Coal reserves were being exploited from the Middle Ages at least, and a fourteenth-century charter refers to the coal-mine there: 1333 la Mine de Carboun en Colsterdale. It is possible therefore that ‘colster’ is the so-called feminine form of ‘coler’, that is one employed in working coal. Neither of these words has otherwise been recorded although the first element of Cowlersley near Huddersfield is said to derive from an Old English word for charcoal-burner.

dates 1333

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Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0