© John Angerson.
18th June 1984.
The Battle of Orgreave was a violent confrontation on 18th June 1984 between police and pickets at a British Steel Corporation (BSC) coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire. It was a pivotal event in the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, and one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history. Historian’s have described the confrontation as "almost medieval in its choreography at various stages a siege, a battle, a chase, a rout and, finally, a brutal example of legalised state violence”. The plant was closed in 2005 and UK Coal’s property subsidiary, Harworth Estates, the only profitable arm of its business, was charged with decommissioning, decontaminating and developing the former coalfields. A private-sector property development was built alongside the Advanced Manufacturing Park, with a University partnered Research Centre; a cluster of high-tech, specialised steel and manufacturing firms. Intriguingly the decision was made to rename the village of Orgreave to ‘Waverley’.