Annfield Plain is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated on a plateau between the towns of Stanley, 3 mi (4.8 km) to the north-east, and Consett, 5 mi (8.0 km) to the west. According to the 2001 census, Annfield Plain had a population of 3,569. By the time of the 2011 Census Annfield Plain had become a ward of Stanley parish. The ward had a population of 7,774. Along with much of the surrounding area, Annfield Plain's history was coal mining.
Spennymoor is a town and civil parish in County Durham, England. It is south of the River Wear and is 7 mi (11 km) south of Durham. The civil parish includes the villages of Kirk Merrington, Middlestone Moor, Byers Green and Tudhoe. In 2011 the parish had a population of 19,816.
Middleton is a largely residential suburb of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England and historically a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It is situated on a hill 4 miles (6 km) south of Leeds city centre and 165 miles (266 km) north north-west of London.
Sacriston is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in County Durham, England, situated 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the city of Durham. The area has been populated since the Bronze Age.
Newbottle is a village in the Sunderland district, in Tyne and Wear, England. The village is situated between Durham 8 miles (13 km) and Sunderland is 5 miles (8.0 km). It was historically a part of County Durham.
Dipton is a village located in County Durham, England. It is situated to the north-east of Consett, 3 miles south west of Burnopfield and a short distance to the north-west of Annfield Plain.
Easington Colliery is a village in County Durham, England, known for a history of coal mining. It is situated to the north of Horden, a short distance to the east of Easington. It had a population of 4,959 in 2001, and 5,022 at the 2011 Census.
Murton is a village in County Durham, England, eight miles (13 km) east of the city of Durham and six miles (9.7 km) south of Sunderland. It had a population of 4,534, which rose to 7,676 at the 2011 Census.
Crookhall is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated between Consett and Delves Lane. It is named after, and intimately connected to, Crook Hall which once stood nearby.
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in places such as coal mines where the air may carry coal dust or a build-up of inflammable gases, which may explode if ignited, possibly by an electric spark. Until the development of effective electric lamps in the early 1900s, miners used flame lamps to provide illumination. Open flame lamps could ignite flammable gases which collected in mines, causing explosions; safety lamps were developed to enclose the flame to prevent it from igniting the explosive gases. Flame safety lamps have been replaced for lighting in mining with sealed explosion-proof electric lights, but continue to be used to detect gases.
William Reid Clanny FRSE was an Irish physician and inventor of a safety lamp.
Albany is a suburb of Washington in the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, historically part of County Durham. It is in the north of the town. The village is also relatively close to The Galleries Shopping Centre, Washington.
The Felling Colliery in Britain, suffered four disasters in the 19th century, in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. By far the worst of the four was the 1812 disaster which claimed 92 lives on 25 May 1812. The loss of life in the 1812 disaster was one of the motivators for the development of miners' safety lamps such as the Geordie lamp and the Davy lamp.
Clifton Hall Colliery was one of two coal mines in Clifton on the Manchester Coalfield, historically in Lancashire which was incorporated into the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England in 1974. Clifton Hall was notorious for an explosion in 1885 which killed around 178 men and boys.
Middle Rainton was a small village between West Rainton and East Rainton on the boundary of County Durham and the City of Sunderland, north east England. It was subject to a schedule D notice and hence ceased to exist in the 1970s. The site of Middle Rainton is now a Nature Reserve open to the Public. It lies on the A690 road, about 3 miles (5 km) east of the A1(M). The land on which Middle Rainton was built was originally owned by R Heaviside. John Buddle bought the land in 1820 to build houses for the miners working in the local pits. Wm Fordyce “History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham” Vol 2 notes that the village is “principally occupied by persons engaged in the collieries”. (1) A point reinforced by the Census Returns 1851 to 1891, which show that the vast majority of the males of working age being engaged as miners or other tasks associated with the mine Prior to 1815 Buddle on behalf of Londonderry had been closing Pits in the area but new mining technology had emerged which allowed for the exploitation of deeper coal seams. Between 1816 and 1824, 6 Pits were opened in the immediate area – Adventure (1816), Resolution(1816), Plain(1817), Hazard(1818), Meadows(1824), Alexandrina (1824). (2) In 1851 the Census notes there were 189 Dwellings with 449 males and 393 females a total population of 842. This appears to have been the time of peak occupancy. By 1871 only 155 dwellings were recorded as occupied with 15 as unoccupied and a total population of 726. By 1911 there were 102 dwellings, 277 males, 272 females a total of 549. The 1911 census reports that the Village had its own Police Station – with a resident policeman. The following streets are named at various times : Front Street West Row, Back Row, Lewis Street, Cross Street ,Chapel Row ,Slate Row, and in 1871 only, Pipewell Gate. Of these only Front street, was paved (3) The census at various times notes a variety of shops and 4 pubs Fox and Hounds, Rose and Crown, Hope and Anchor and Foresters Arms. The Village boasted a Salvation Army Hall and before that a Primitive Methodist Chapel. The 1851 census records that on Sunday 30 March 1851, 157 people attended the morning service, 150 the afternoon and 200 the evening service at the Methodist Chapel . In 1843 the Black American female Evangelist Zilpha Elaw claimed she preached to a large crowd at Middle Rainton in September 1843 one might assume that either this was an outdoor meeting or was held in the Chapel. (11) By 1896 The nearest Pit - the Meadows – was proving to be unprofitable and was closed (2) and this probably explains the drop in the population of the village. From the end of the 19th Century there are reports condemning the state of the houses and the sewage arrangements. In 1899 the Local Medical Officer of Health stated “The sanitary condition of the village of Middle Rainton is reported to be getting worse, Houses are becoming uninhabitable and falling into ruins, and the tenants are so poor that it does not pay the owners to keep them in repair. Four houses reported on by the sanitary inspector are in a very bad state, and it is recommended that they should either be immediately repaired or closed. The open channels at the Freehold, though repaired, are not satisfactory, for “ at the lower “ ends there are frequent accumulations which choke “ up the sinks and cause overflows near the houses “ there.” The scavenging is not satisfactorily performed, and some of the ashpits are reported to be never quite emptied”. (4) While one year later he stated “There is said to be no improvement in the sanitary condition of Middle Rainton, and a large number of the houses are unoccupied and the out-offices in a dilapidated state. The report states that steps are being taken by the R.D.C. to have the insanitary dwellings either closed or repaired. At the Freehold the open channels have been repaired and more attention given to the cleansing of them, “although covered sewers and sinks to each house “ would be beneficial as regards the health of the “ village.” The scavenging of the district is stated not to have been altogether satisfactory, and the cartmen’s attention frequently had to be called to their neglect of duty.” (5) In 1904 it was reported “The report again refers to the condition of Middle Rainton, where more houses are vacant and going to ruin, and where most of the insanitary conditions are due to the bad habits of the low-class population living there” (6) Again in 1907 “In the report of the Inspector of Nuisances it is mentioned that ………….At Middle Rainton 36 notices were served upon the owners of property, and, as a result, some of the houses were voluntarily closed and others have been repaired”(7) By 1946 it is clear that the Village is not considered worth saving “The remaining houses in Middle Rainton, however, all drain into a sewer which eventually discharges into a ditch next, the Meadows Colliery. There are a few water-closets installed in these houses and owing to the ditch becoming silted-up, and a restricted flow in dry weather, this method of sewerage disposal has been a source of complaint from time to time. The houses concerned are old and the majority substandard, in fact they might reasonably have been dealt with under the Slum Clearance scheme which eliminated the remainder of this small village, and the installation of an elaborate sewerage system would hardly appear to be justified at the present time” (8) By the 1950s the population was down to 113 with 31 dwellings and John Harvey, an ex-resident, notes that houses were cleared about five at a time and the residents moved to other settlements. Many seem to have moved to the new council estate in East Rainton but others moved to West Rainton and the new town at Peterlee.(3)
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.
Marley Hill is a former colliery village about six miles to the south west of Gateshead, near the border between Tyne and Wear and County Durham. It has been part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead since 1974. Prior to this it was part of Whickham Urban District. It lies within the Whickham South & Sunniside electoral ward of the Blaydon parliamentary constituency.
Gibfield Colliery was a coal mine owned by Fletcher, Burrows and Company in Atherton, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Sheriff Hill Colliery or Ellison Main Colliery was a coal mine at Gateshead Fell in County Durham, England. The colliery had two shafts and provided employment to the residents of Sheriff Hill, after it opened in 1793. There were many major accidents resulting in the deaths of workers at the colliery. There was a protracted strike at the colliery in 1834. The colliery closed in 1926.
Harraton is a suburb of Washington, in the Sunderland metropolitan borough, in Tyne and Wear, England. Harraton is near the River Wear and is 3 miles north-east of Chester-le-Street, 2 miles south-west of Washington town centre and 9 miles south-southwest of Sunderland.
