Tanfield is a former mining village in County Durham, England, near Stanley, and the location of Tanfield Railway, the Causey Arch and Tanfield School.
Northumberland is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county are Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Hadrian's Wall.
The South Tynedale Railway is a preserved, 2 ft narrow gauge heritage railway in Northern England and at 875ft is England's second highest narrow gauge railway after the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in north Devon. The South Tynedale line runs from Alston in Cumbria, down the South Tyne Valley, via Gilderdale, Kirkhaugh and Lintley, then across the South Tyne, Gilderdale and Whitley Viaducts to Slaggyford in Northumberland.
Alston is a town in Cumbria, England, within the civil parish of Alston Moor on the River South Tyne. It shares the title of the 'highest market town in England', at about 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, with Buxton, Derbyshire. Despite its altitude, the town is easily accessible via the many roads which link the town to Weardale, Teesdale, and towns in Cumbria such as Penrith via Hartside Pass, as well as Tynedale. Historically part of Cumberland, Alston lies within the North Pennines, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Much of the town centre is a designated Conservation Area which includes several listed buildings.
Haltwhistle is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 10 miles (16 km) east of Brampton. It had a population of 3,811 at the 2011 Census.
Allendale, often marked on maps as Allendale Town, is a village and civil parish in south west Northumberland, England. It is located within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Druridge Bay is a 7-mile (11 km) long bay on the North Sea in Northumberland, England, stretching from Amble in the north to Cresswell in the south.
Haltwhistle is a railway station on the Tyne Valley Line, which runs between Newcastle and Carlisle via Hexham. The station, situated 22 miles 66 chains east of Carlisle, serves the market town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
Greenhead is a village in Northumberland, England. The village is on the Military Road (B6318), about 17 miles (27 km) from Chollerford, 3 miles (5 km) from Haltwhistle and 9 miles (14 km) from Brampton, Cumbria along the A69 road. The A69 bypasses the village, but until the 1980s all vehicular traffic passed through it. The village lies just outside the Northumberland National Park, close to Hadrian's Wall. Just to the north of the village is the 12th-century Thirlwall Castle, recently restored and opened to the public. Nearby villages include Upper Denton and Haltwhistle.
Ashington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 27,864 at the 2011 Census. It was once a centre of the coal mining industry. The town is 15 miles (24 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne, west of the A189 and bordered to the south by the River Wansbeck. The North Sea coast at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea is 3 miles (5 km) away.
Hallbankgate is a village in Cumbria, England, 13 miles (21 km) east of Carlisle. A former coal and lead mining village, it straddles the A689 Brampton to Alston road. Limestone is quarried here and it once had a gasworks and a forge. The village has a primary school, a village shop and tea room and a pub. There are three other hamlets in the civil parish, Farlam, Kirkhouse and Tindale.
The Coal Authority is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. It owns the vast majority of unworked coal in Great Britain, as well as former coal mines, and undertakes a range of functions including:
Lambley, formerly known as Harper Town, is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Coanwood, in Northumberland, England about four miles (6 km) southwest of Haltwhistle. The village lies adjacent to the River South Tyne. In 1951 the parish had a population of 298. The place name Lambley refers to the "pasture of lambs". Lambley used to be the site of a small convent of Benedictine Nuns, founded by Adam de Tindale and Heloise, his wife, in the 12th century. The Scots led by William Wallace devastated it in 1296 [Rowland gives 1297]. However it was restored and one William Tynedale was ordained priest to the nunnery in about 1508 – most likely not William Tyndale, the reformer, as once believed but another man of the same name. At the time of the suppression of religious houses by Henry VIII, the nunnery contained six inmates. Nothing now remains but the bell from the nunnery, which hangs in the church, and a few carved stones. The village lies in the Midgeholme Coalfield and there are reserves of good-quality coal remaining.
Plenmeller is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Plenmeller with Whitfield, in Northumberland, England about a mile (1½ km) southeast of Haltwhistle. In 1951 the parish had a population of 107.
Wharncliffe Woodmoor 1, 2 and 3 colliery was a coal mine that was located at the junction of Laithes Lane and Carlton Road, about 2 miles northeast of Barnsley, South Yorkshire and a quarter mile east of Staincross and Mapplewell railway station, on the Great Central Railway. The branch line junction was about 200 feet from Staincross that connected it to the colliery via a private line. The line finished up between the three main shafts and the coking ovens.
Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom is in decline. Output has fallen every year since 2010. In 2010, the United Kingdom was forecast to produce about ten million tonnes of coal a year from open-pit mines. Most came from Scotland, with the largest operator there being the Scottish Coal subsidiary of Scottish Resources Group. Actual production in 2010 was over 13 million tonnes but this has declined to less than 8 million tonnes in 2014. Deep coal mining stopped completely at the end of 2015 and the UK is planning to phase out the use of coal to produce electricity by 2024.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal – mostly for electricity – fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to 18 million tonnes in 2016, of which 77% was imported from Colombia, Russia, and the United States. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, and to 2,000 in 2015.
The Midgeholme Coalfield is a coalfield in Midgeholme, on the border of Cumbria with Northumberland in northern England. It is the largest of a series of small coalfields along the south side of the Tyne Valley and which are intermediate between the Northumberland and Durham Coalfields to the east and the Cumberland Coalfield to the west. Like the other small coalfields to its east, this small outlier of the Coal Measures at Midgeholme occurs on the Stublick-Ninety Fathom Fault System, a zone of faults defining the northern edge of the Alston Block otherwise known as the North Pennines. It is recorded that coal was being mined at Midgeholme in the early seventeenth century. In the 1830s coal trains were being hauled from Midgeholme Colliery along the Brampton Railway by Stephenson's Rocket. The early workings have left a legacy of spoil heaps, bell pits, shafts and adits. There is no current coal production. However in January 2014, Northumberland County Council gave planning permission for the open-cast extraction of 37,000 tonnes of coal at Halton Lea Gate. This may open the way for other applications to mine the coalfield. In 1990 a proposal to mine reserves of 60,000 tonnes of good-quality coal at Lambley, Northumberland was rejected, but the prospect for a successful application has now changed, since the Planning Inspector allowed the development to proceed at Halton Lea Gate on appeal.
Tindale or Tindale Fell is a hamlet in the parish of Farlam in the City of Carlisle district of the English county of Cumbria. It is to the south of the A689 Brampton to Alston road. It is a former mining village – both coal and lead were mined here. Limestone was quarried here.
