THIRTY years ago on Sunday, the last deep miners emerged at the end of their last shift from the last pit in the County Durham coalfield, bringing to an end 800 years of an industry that was the bedrock of the county’s economy and of thousands of people’s lives.
Here’s 800 years of history followed by a snapshot from that final day…
• The first evidence of mining in the Durham coalfield is from 1183 when there was a “collier” working at Escomb, near Bishop Auckland, and a coal-fired forge in operation near Wearmouth
• The first “deep” mine in the county is said to have been sunk around 1375 on Cockfield Fell by the Vavasour family. No one knows how deep it really was – it was probably just a big bell pit, one of the 400 or so which still pockmark the fell
• The first pits were sunk near the Tyne and Wear riverbanks during the 14th Century so coal could be exported down the coast to London or across the North Sea to the Netherlands.
• By 1650, colliery workings spread from around Gateshead in the north down through the Chester-le-Street and Durham area to the Crook and Bishop Auckland district in the south.
• From 1820 to 1850, there was concerted exploration of the "concealed coalfield' to the east of Durham City, where the coal seams lie under a vast layer of limestone. This led to the opening of famous pits at Hetton (1820), Wearmouth (1826) and Murton (1838).
• In 1822, the Hetton Railway, the first to be designed for use without any animal-power, opened. It was designed by George Stephenson to move coal from Hetton Colliery eight miles to staithes on the Wear using steam engines and stationery engines. This led to the Stockton & Darlington Railway of 1825, the world’s first modern railway, which was designed the south of the coalfield to the port of Middlesbrough.
• Hand-in-hand with coal went iron production at Consett, Tow Law, Ferryhill and then Middlesbrough, and inextricably linked to both industries, was shipbuilding and heavy engineering.
• The heyday of the Durham coalfield was 1913. There were 304 pits and 165,246 miners producing 41,533,000 tons.
• On Vesting Day in 1947 when the mines were nationalised, there were 127 collieries in the coalfield.
• Rapid shrinkage occurred from 1954. By 1969 there were 34 pits and 34,484 miners.
• The last active pits to the west of the county were Bearpark (closed April 6, 1984) and Sacriston (closed November 15, 1985).
• After the 1984-5 miners' strike, British Coal concentrated on "superpits” on the east coast, but closures continued: Horden and Eppleton (closed 1986), Seaham (1988) and Dawdon and Murton (1991). By 1993, there were only four: Easington and Westoe (both closed May 7, 1993), Vane Tempest (closed June 4, 1993), and finally, Wearmouth, where the final mining shift clocked off on December 10, 1993, as I watched...
From The Northern Echo of December 11, 1993
JOHN Milroy places his lamp on the shelf with all the others, just like thousands of miners before him. One final glance around, and it's all over. The last shift in the last Durham mine is finished.
Yesterday, after 810 years – a mere 167 years at Wearmouth – the Durham coalfield, upon which the North-East was built, died.
Five miles out, deep under the cold North Sea, the last couple of hundred miners held something of a wake.
"There were a few bags of crisps and a few pies, and we tried to cheer each other up," Charles Oxley reported back from the coalface. Others said someone had had a harmonica, and as the cage hauled them out of the bowels of the earth for the final time, they'd sung: "We'll meet again".
It was hardly a party. "Sad day," said one; "It was sombre, basically," said another; "Relief that it's all over," said a third; "Everybody's gutted, but the lads got together and had a sing-song," said a fourth; "Nae words for nae cam'ras," said a fifth.
Some returned to the pithead yesterday evening for an interview to see if they could secure a place on the care and maintenance programme for the next few weeks, perhaps months, dismantling and shutting down the pit.
Most were resigned to their future as what the Government euphemistically calls "job-seekers" (male unemployment in Sunderland was on average 17 per cent with some pockets being 40 per cent). "Nowt. I'm 49. There's nowt," said one. "I've got two young lads who've been on the dole since they left school," said another. "Nothing, a part from the British Coal job programme," said a third.
"I've got to readapt as I've worked in mines 17 year," said a fourth.
"I'm havin' a quick pint and then I'm off to collect bairns," said the fifth.
Few had any faith in Wearmouth's future, either, despite two private companies expressing an interest in buying it. "Sceptical, all the lads are sceptical," said one. "There's continual salvage work going on even this weekend," said another. "British Coal don't want anyone to take it over because if someone makes a success of it what does it make British Coal look like?" said a third. "There's no way. I hope I'm wrong. If there's a God up there " said a fourth. "Rock all," said the fifth.
And then they sped out the gates and away. Those in cars drove along the north bank of the steep, wide Wear valley where the new era is being heralded. "Enterprize Zone status until the year 2000" scream the signs.
"Make it Wearside", demand others.
But the biggest and the best of the signs, with flags on top straining in the teeth of a gale, proclaims: "Welcome to the North-East".
Miners are very much a part of the old North-East was built and many walked away from Wearmouth, going by signs demanding that they should "Think Safety”, “Work Safely”, and "Be Safe”.
The last sign they passed proclaimed: "This is a safe colliery”. It is now out of date. It should say: “This was a safe colliery” in the past tense, just as this was, for eight centuries in the past, the industry on which Durham was built.
• Next week: A visit down the last pit in its final days
READ MORE: GREAT VIADUCT ENGINEER KILLED ON HIS OWN RAILWAYS JUST WEEKS AFTER OPENING DAY
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