Murton (Tynemouth Moor) Colliery Waggonway

By 1811. The Duke of Northumberland’s Tynemouth Shire Moor Colliery was worked for High Main coal from the mid 18th century by the partnership of Gibson, Bell and Brown. Its pits were served by Tynemouth Shire Moor Waggonway (HER 1113). By the late 18th century the High Main Seam in the eastern part of the colliery around Murton had been worked out and the colliery and the waggonway to the Murton area closed. In the 1800s, as technology allowed, the old Murton pits were reopened to exploit deeper coal seams and to extract associated ironstone deposits. A map of 1811 (in Turnbull 2012, route 10B) shows the D and E pits at New York to the south of Murton. Warn and Timoney say the line was opened in 1764 but there is no evidence for this.