Formerly a rural village with a tradition of hop-growing, from the 1920s onwards the main industry was coal mining with Ollerton expanding greatly during the 1960s and 1970s. A miner visiting from Ackton Hall Colliery, near Featherstone, West Yorkshire died at Ollerton when picketing during the miners’ strike in 1984.  Ollerton features in a connected song by Australian singer Darren Hayes called “A Hundred Challenging Things A Boy Can Do” on his 2007 album, This Delicate Thing We’ve Made.

The mine closed in 1994. Subsequently, the land around the mine was reclaimed and redeveloped as an ecologically sustainable “village” of commercial offices, including a large nearby Tesco Extra megastore.