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The Oakenshaw Pit shaft was sunk in 1855 for Messrs. Straker & Love; the shaft was put down from the surface through the Hutton to the Brockwell seam which is 3ft thick at a depth of 420ft. The output from the pit travelled in wagons by an incline line to the coke ovens at Brancepeth Colliery. In 1896 the mine employed 465 men and boys.
The Oakenshaw pit was part of the Brancepeth mine complex, the pit being known as "B pit". Oakenshaw produced coal from 1896 to sometime in the very late 1930s or early 1940s. It was then used as a ventilation shaft and for supplies.
Messrs. Straker and Love in total owned very large collieries at Brandon; Oakenshaw; Sunnybrow and Willington which altogether produced one million tons of coal per annum and employed over 3000 people. The coal mined at these pits was almost exclusively converted to coke, which was the celebrated "Brancepeth coke". The Brancepeth
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