Middleton Community Archaeology Project celebrated two years work and research into Middleton Park's historic mining with a talk and book launch.
A packed meeting at Middleton Library watched a short presentation by project archaeologist, Martin Roe, which highlighted the group's findings.
The project, carried out by a team of over 40 volunteers, spent two winters mapping the presence and type of over 400 mine-shafts and other historic features across Middleton Park.
Mr Roe praised the work of the amateur volunteers, adding: "This has been a true community project. The work of the volunteers has been of an exceptionally high professional standard. They have demonstrated that Middleton Park is one of the best preserved and most important historic coal-mining landscapes in West Yorkshire."
Among the 400 years of mining remains in the park are evidence of over 2 kilometres of waggonways developed in the early 18th century to move the coal out of the park, the precursors of the famous historic Middleton railway. Many of the waggonway routes were previously unknown.
Mr Roe highlighted several styles of mining spanning the 17th to the 19th century, from the early Bell pits via early pillar and stall extraction through to the start of modern deep mining that only finished with the closure of Broomfield pit in 1968.
Middleton has exceptional evidence of horse powered Cog and Rung Gins, used to bring coal up from the early deep mining shafts. Howard Jackson, a local artist, has donated to the project an impressively detailed drawing of how one of these early Gins may have looked.
After the talk Martin signed copies of the book, Coal Mining in Middleton Park: An Archaeological Investigation by the Middleton Park Community Archaeological Project, while the volunteers and friends toasted their success.
Friends of Middleton Park are currently investigating further funding to continue the project's investigations into the history of Middleton Park.