Rainton and Seaham Railway, A Pit Branch

HER Number:
3216

District:
Sunderland

Site Name:
Rainton and Seaham Railway, A Pit Branch

Place:
East Rainton

Map Sheet:
NZ34NW

Class:
Transport

Site Type: Broad:
Railway Transport Site

Site Type: Specific:
Railway

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
With the development of more effective pumping engines to drain previously unworkable deep coal seams and the development of nucleated collieries, the Rainton Waggonway, especially its southern routes, was extensively upgraded and re-organised by the Tempests, to whom it had passed by marriage from the Whartons in 1730. A number of new branch lines to collieries were constructed between 1816 (the Resolution Pit) and 1826 (Pittington Colliery). The line to the Alexandrina (or Letch) Pit (HER 3219) was opened in 1824. Hair says that the colliery was sunk to 80 fathoms, to the Hutton Seam which was in this area just over 4 feet thick. This was part of the Londonderry Railway, which closed in 1896.

Easting:
33237

Northing:
46369

Grid Reference:
NZ3323746369

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 3216 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, 1861, 6 inch scale, Durham20 C.E. Mountford, 1970, The Development of Colliery Railways in Co. Durham, p.14, 16; Alan Williams Archaeology, 2013, Waggonways to the South Bank of the River Tyne and to the River Wear; Turnbull, L, 2012, Railways Before George Stephenson (entry 87D) p 163 and 172; Bell, 1829, Map of the Coalfield (TWAS 2/421); Hair, T.H,. Views of the Collieries, 1844 p45