Backworth Colliery 'Maude' or A Pit

HER Number

1105

District

N Tyneside

Site Name

Backworth Colliery 'Maude' or A Pit

Place

Backworth

Map Sheet

NZ37NE

Class

Industrial

Site Type: Broad

Coal Mining Site

Site Type: Specific

Colliery

General Period

POST MEDIEVAL

Specific Period

Hanoverian 1714 to 1837

Form of Evidence

Documentary Evidence

Description

Backworth Colliery "A" Pit, served by the West Cramlington Wagonway (SMR 1058). Opened in 1815 [Durham mining museum website says A Pit opened in 1813 and Maude Pit in 1872], closed in 1960. Backworth Colliery was owned by Waldie & Co in the 1850s, then Maud Taylor & co, J.C. Lamb & Co, Backworth and West Cramlington Collieries, then Backwoth Collieries Ltd, and from 1947 the NCB. Subsidiary sites - B Pit, Blue Bell Pit, C Pit, D Pit, E Pit, Eccles Pit, Prosperous Pit. In 1927 mechanical mining started at the Maude, Eccles and Algernon Pits, displacing pit ponies. The pit head baths for the Maude and Eccles pits opened February 15th 1930. Electric winding introduced in 1946. There is an article in "Colliery Engineering" August 1933 by James T. Tuck called "Combined Washing and Dry-Cleaning Plant at Backworth Colliery".

Easting

430340

Northing

571910

Grid Reference

NZ430340571910

Sources

<< HER 1105 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, 1865, 6 inch scale, Northumberland 89; http://www.dmm.org.uk; John Elliott & Derek Charlton, 1994, Backworth - An Illustrated History of the Mines and Railways; Archaeological Services Durham University, June 2011, Backworth Business Park, Backworth, Tyne and Wear - archaeological desk-based assessment; Tyne and Wear Archives, Colliery Books DX 198/1, Backworth Colliery photographs DX 1291; Roy Thompson, 2004, Thunder Underground - Northumberland Mine Disasters 1815-65, photo of the stonemen on p 43; Shiremoor Local History Group, The history of Backworth Colliery (in HER 2010/147); Karsgaard, P. 2018. Holywell Engineering Site, Backworth, North Tyneside, Addyman Archaeology, HER4843; Archaeological Services Durham University, 2018, Eccleston Close Backworth, heritage assessment