If iron production moved from the Dale site to the Stanton site, coal production certainly did not cease at Dale. There was at one point a pit in Ladywood, which lies adjacent to the Spondon to Ilkeston road. The local coal was of good quality, and was moved in tubs pulled by horses.

In May 1894 there was a fatal accident at the works in Dale, the inquest, held at the Mundy Arms in Ilkeston, being reported in the Ilkeston Pioneer of 11th May 1894, under the headline ‘Fatal Colliery Accident at Dale Abbey.  The Consequence of Disobeying Rules.’ The unfortunate worker was one
Thomas Glenn, who had died in Ilkeston New Hospital on the preceding Monday. Mr A.H. Stokes, the Government Inspector of Mines and Mr Fowler, the manager of Dale Company, were present. Kate Glenn said they lived at Dale, and her husband was 49, and a collier at Dale pit. On the 2nd May he went to work between two and three pm as a stallman in the mine. At around ten p.m. her husband had become trapped, as 11 hundredweight of coal fell on him. He was brought home conscious but hurt on his thighs, both of which were broken. He was taken to hospital, and died not blaming anyone. He had been a miner under the Stanton Iron Company for 22 years, but on this occasion had not obeyed the safety rules. Mr Stokes cross-examined, and witness Frederick Turton broke down because he knew Glenn had not obeyed the rules. A verdict of accidental death was handed down.

It is not clear when the quarrying of sandstone began at Dale: some years ago two very elderly Dale residents, Miss Maud Hollingworth and Mr Harvey Cross, recalled the sandpit ceasing to function in the 1930s, and one source says it continued for over 50 years, bringing its beginnings to a date of somewhere in the 1870s. The geology hereabouts consists of ‘broad clay lowlands … controlled by shales interrupted by low escarpments of thin interbedded micaceous sandstone’.

There were two sets of workings, the first a long way up Arbour Hill, and the second on the south side of the road by the Carpenter’s Arms. There was a well on the Arbour Hill site. From that site, sand went through a tiny tunnel (which is now silted up but can just about still be seen), under the road to the tramway which led to a shunt in a small wood (locally known as Shunters Wood) between the Moor and Ladywood, where there was also a clay pit. Shunters Wood is private property, and the current owners firmly discourage exploration; however, the previous owners were not so rigorous, and the intrepid explorer could find the remains of walls and the signs of trackbeds.  

The sandpit was managed by Isaac Smith of Mayfield Cottage, Tattle Hill, then by Mr Newton from the Moor. The tramway was horsedrawn, then trucks were moved by chain; operations were entirely by hand; the gauge was one foot four and a half inches. The sandstone has been described as new red non-pebbly sandstone; it was worked for