Albany | |
|---|---|
Suburb | |
  Albany Location in Tyne and Wear | |
| Coordinates: 54°54′32″N1°32′28″W / 54.909°N 1.541°W | |
| OS grid reference | NZ295572 |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Country | England |
| District | Tyne and Wear |
Albany is a suburb of Washington in the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, historically part of County Durham. [1] It is in the north of the town. The village is also relatively close to The Galleries Shopping Centre, Washington.
The Washington 'F' Pit museum is in the village, consisting of an engine house and winding gear built atop one of the earliest colliery shafts in the country. In 1775 a lease was given to William Russell enabling him to mine coal on the Washington estate. He sank eight pits (designated 'A' to 'I') in the ensuing years; 'F' pit is believed to date from 1777. [2] Mining was halted in 1796 due to an explosion flooding the pit and stopping production. Operations recommenced in 1821 [3] In 1856 the pit was extended down to a depth of 660 feet in order to access the Hutton Seam; in 1954 it was further deepened to reach the Busty Seam at a depth of 927 feet. For a time it was the most productive pit on the Washington coalfield, employing over 1500 men and garnering an annual total of 486,000 tons of usable coal in 1964–5. It was closed on 21 June 1968 [2] as part of the National Coal Board's modernisation programme. The winding house and headgear were opened as a museum in 1976. [3]
The engine house was built in 1903 to house a steam winder engine (which had previously been in use elsewhere). It is Grade II listed. [4] The engine, which remained in regular use until the pit's closure, is still in situ. It is an 1888 horizontal, simplex (i.e. non-compound) steam engine built by the Grange Iron Company of Durham City. The same company oversaw the re-siting of the engine in 1903, and they took the opportunity then of adding their latest patent steam expansion valves to maximize the engine's efficiency.
The 'F' Pit museum is one of the few remaining physical reminders in Washington of the countless colliery installations which once dominated the area. It is open to the public, but on an irregular basis; [4] as well as displays and exhibits, the engine can be viewed in motion (driven by electric motor).
Murton is a village in County Durham, England. Lying eight miles (13 km) east of the city of Durham and six miles (9.7 km) south of Sunderland, it has a population of 4,534, increasing to 7,676 at the 2011 Census.
Cornsay Colliery is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated a few miles to the west of Durham, close to Cornsay, Quebec and Esh Winning.
Caphouse Colliery, originally known as Overton Colliery, was a coal mine in Overton, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It was situated on the Denby Grange estate owned by the Lister Kaye family, and was worked from the 18th century until 1985. It reopened as the Yorkshire Mining Museum in 1988, and is now the National Coal Mining Museum for England.
The Hartley Colliery disaster was a coal mining accident in Northumberland, England, that occurred on 16 January 1862 and resulted in the deaths of 204 men and children. The beam of the pit's pumping engine broke and fell down the shaft, trapping the men below. The disaster prompted a change in British law that required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape.
Stella is a community in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It lies on the south bank of the Tyne, about 5 miles (8 km) west of central Newcastle upon Tyne, between Blaydon and Ryton. The area includes the Stella Park housing estate, built on the grounds of a mansion of the same name.
The Somerset Coalfield in northern Somerset, England is an area where coal was mined from the 15th century until 1973. It is part of a larger coalfield which stretched into southern Gloucestershire. The Somerset coalfield stretched from Cromhall in the north to the Mendip Hills in the south, and from Bath in the east to Nailsea in the west, a total area of about 240 square miles (622 km2). Most of the pits on the coalfield were concentrated in the Cam Brook, Wellow Brook and Nettlebridge Valleys and around Radstock and Farrington Gurney. The pits were grouped geographically, with clusters of pits close together working the same coal seams often under the same ownership. Many pits shared the trackways and tramways which connected them to the Somerset Coal Canal or railways for distribution.
Cefn Coed Colliery Museum is a former coal mine, now operating as a museum. It is located at Crynant near Neath in the South Wales Valleys.
The Elsecar Collieries were the coal mines sunk in and around Elsecar, a small village to the south of Barnsley in what is now South Yorkshire, but was traditionally in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent, England. It was the largest mine working the North Staffordshire Coalfield and was the first colliery in the UK to produce one million tons of saleable coal in a year.
The Ingleton Coalfield is in North Yorkshire, close to its border with Lancashire in north-west England. Isolated from other coal-producing areas, it is one of the smallest coalfields in Great Britain.
The Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company formed in 1900 owned coal mines on the Lancashire Coalfield south of the railway in Astley and Tyldesley, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
Astley Green Colliery was a coal mine in Astley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was the last colliery to be sunk in Astley. Sinking commenced in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, at the southern edge of the Manchester Coalfield, working the Middle Coal Measures where they dipped under the Permian age rocks under Chat Moss. The colliery was north of the Bridgewater Canal. In 1929 it became part of Manchester Collieries, and in 1947 was nationalised and integrated into the National Coal Board. It closed in 1970, and is now Astley Green Colliery Museum.
Parsonage Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield in Leigh, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery, close to the centre of Leigh and the Bolton and Leigh Railway was sunk between 1913 and 1920 by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company and the first coal was wound to the surface in 1921. For many years its shafts to the Arley mine were the deepest in the country. The pit was close to the town centre and large pillars of coal were left under the parish church and the town's large cotton mills.
Chanters Colliery was a coal mine which was part of the Fletcher, Burrows and Company's collieries at Hindsford in Atherton, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Mosley Common Colliery was a coal mine originally owned by the Bridgewater Trustees operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Mosley Common, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery eventually had five shafts and became the largest colliery on the Lancashire Coalfield with access to around 270 million tons of coal under the Permian rocks to the south.
Bradford Colliery was a coal mine in Bradford, Manchester, England. Although part of the Manchester Coalfield, the seams of the Bradford Coalfield correspond more closely to those of the Oldham Coalfield. The Bradford Coalfield is crossed by a number of fault lines, principally the Bradford Fault, which was reactivated by mining activity in the mid-1960s.
The Racecourse Colliery is an exhibit located at the Black Country Living Museum.
William Brown (1717-1782) - or William Brown of Throckley as he was sometimes known - was an English mining engineer, waggonway constructor and steam engine builder who played a major role in the development of the coal mining industry in the North East of England and also elsewhere in Britain and Ireland.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Hapton Valley Colliery was a coal mine on the edge of Hapton near Burnley in Lancashire, England. Its first shafts were sunk in the early 1850s and it had a life of almost 130 years, surviving to be the last deep mine operating on the Burnley Coalfield.
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