Bringing the lost village of Cornsay Colliery back to life

Once Commercial Street was a hive of commercial activity, from the Royal Oak pub at the bottom through the grocers, like Walter Willson, the co-op, three butchers, an off-licence, a post office, a barber, a toy shop, a chippie, and Maughan’s chemist, pronounced “Maffan”, which sold everything from medicines to metal toecaps for pitboots.

And the suspiciously open field was full of seven streets of 170 houses, 270 cokeovens in three vast banks by the beck, and a colliery, a brickworks and a pipeworks.

Cornsay Colliery included several drift mines which followed thin seams of coal into the hillside. Here the shift is just beginning, as the miners are all clean, and the Deputy Overman, who is in charge of the shift, is standing on the tracks. He is carrying his deputy's stick, which was a status symbol and was used for measuring things like pit props, which can be seen stacked up on the left. A rope, going over a roller, can be seen running in the middle of the tracks. This was attached to a steam-driven hauler, a stationery engine, which hauled the laden tubs out of the drift

All were demolished after the colliery closed in September 1953, and now there is only John Rippon’s new book to suggest they ever existed.

John grew up among the terraces, and uses his family photos to sketch in what life used to be like in this lost village.

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One of his grandfathers was a keeker – in charge of the pit-heap which was the centre of the colliery – and one of his cousins’ families was evicted from their pit house when their son was caught climbing into the garden of Mr Curry, the colliery manager, to retrieve his football. Although the boy’s misdemeanour was given as the reason for the eviction, it was more likely to do with his father being a Durham Miners’ Association lodge official.

The pit heap at Cornsay Colliery with keeker – the man in charge – John Puckering, John Rippon's grandfather, on the left. At Cornsay, which was essentially a drift mine, the pit heap seems to have been what deep mine would have called a pithead. In a deep mine, the pit heap is usually a pile of mining debris

Cornsay Colliery, which is less than 10 miles west of Durham City, was begun in 1868 on land owned by Ushaw College – the names of the terraced streets were either descriptive, like Stable Street or Office Street, or the surnames of college priests, like Liddle Street or Single and Double Chadwick Street.

The houses were very basic: a front door opened straight from the mud street into the living room, which featured a huge coal-fired range. At the back was a lean-to scullery; upstairs were two bedrooms for the whole family, and outside was the netty next to the coalhouse.

Union Square in Cornsay Colliery, showing goods rescued from a fire in the working men's club on January 30, 1909. The picture also shows the rear of the houses, which featured lean-to sculleries and only very small windows on the rear

When the colliery closed, Cornsay Colliery was one of the first of Durham’s villages to be labelled Category D by the council. It was considered to have no economic future and so would get no public investment. Instead, the whole population would be moved out, to the new Hamsteels estate in Esh Winning, and the terraced slums razed.

The wedding of Thomas Rippon and Lizzie Keepin, the author's grandparents, in 1908 at the rear of 80, Liddle Street, a house that was built out of rough stone that was quarried nearby. The back street is so uneven that a brick is being used to stabilise the table with the wedding cake on it, and everyone is wearing hired best clothing. The groom Thomas, and his brother-in-law who is in the middle of the back row, were both killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916

John, who was born in Union Street, finishes his book by telling how this affected the people.

They protested, which is why Commercial Street was saved, and were then moved into the fine three or four bedroom council houses with hot running water, indoor flush toilets, electric sockets and space.

Lilian Rippon, the author's mother, and her mother at 10 Gillow Street, Cornsay Colliery. Note the rudimentary doorstep and the men on the roof, fixing the tiles while the sun shines. But however did they get down?

“However, the enormous improvement in living conditions, especially for the housewives, was tempered by many by an overwhelming sense of loss,” says John. “The enforced intimacy of living and working in close proximity to neighbours and workmates engendered a sense of community and belonging which was lost in the move.

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“Families who had been close neighbours found themselves separated. Next-door neighbours in the old village lived cheek-by-jowl in the colliery terraces. Next-door neighbours on the estate were now separated by gardens and hedges.

“It is impossible for present day readers to appreciate the impact of these changes on everyone who moved into these new little palaces.”

Author John Rippon demonstrating an outside netty at Cornsay Colliery 

Another of his cousins from the cheek-by-jowl terraces was another John Rippon. He joined the Royal Marines and moved away to fight in the Second World War, during which, in Plymouth, he had a daughter: Angela Rippon.

TV personality, Strictly Come Dancing star Angela Rippon, whose father was born in Cornsay Colliery

She has written the foreword to her second cousin’s book in which she concludes: “We should all follow John Rippon’s example and be more curious about our heritage, and keep alive the stories of the men and women who made us what we are.”

In Search of a Lost Mining Village by John Rippon is available for about £7 from Northern Stores & Deli in Prince Bishops Shopping Centre, Durham, and from Field’s Fish Shop in Esh Winning and at Beamish Museum. It can be ordered on-line at cornsayhistory.org.uk or by ringing 0191-371-9218 as a last resort. For further information, email cornsay1@yahoo.com

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