Passed by the village of South Hetton today and this mural caught my eye...
Although I was only armed with a camera phone (apologies on quality) I decided to go an see if there was anything left.
The wheels have been kept as a monument
The expanse of field is clearly where the colliery used to be and it didn't take long to find some tell tale signs!
But where was the shaft? Well never I found it, but I did find the Hawthorn Combined mine shaft.
The Hawthorn Combined mine basically linked 3 small mines together underground to a central large shaft and big winding gear.
This shaft holds the European record, apparently, for the most coal brought up a single shaft in one day - 12000 tons.
Note the fence in the background designed to keep people out but couldn't see any danger as its well capped.
I followed some roads to nowhere...
and sadly there is nothing left of an area of no more that 3 miles radius that up until 20 years ago or less had 5 pits and a coke works, and was served by its own railway line to Ryhope right past Cherry Knowle. Everything now gone save for the above.
There is a major transformer station next to the old pit shaft though and I was impressed by this fella, which was making a deep loud and quite sobering humming. Its about the size of my house!
Note the wires in front of the camera: I pushed my hand past to get a better photo only to find they were electrified
got a real fright but fortunately it was a low voltage electric security fence. But it was a brown trouser moment feeling a big shock while standing next to a supergrid transformer
This is my favorite shot which isn't bad for a camera phone...
Although I was only armed with a camera phone (apologies on quality) I decided to go an see if there was anything left.
The wheels have been kept as a monument
The expanse of field is clearly where the colliery used to be and it didn't take long to find some tell tale signs!
But where was the shaft? Well never I found it, but I did find the Hawthorn Combined mine shaft.
The Hawthorn Combined mine basically linked 3 small mines together underground to a central large shaft and big winding gear.
This shaft holds the European record, apparently, for the most coal brought up a single shaft in one day - 12000 tons.
Note the fence in the background designed to keep people out but couldn't see any danger as its well capped.
I followed some roads to nowhere...
and sadly there is nothing left of an area of no more that 3 miles radius that up until 20 years ago or less had 5 pits and a coke works, and was served by its own railway line to Ryhope right past Cherry Knowle. Everything now gone save for the above.
There is a major transformer station next to the old pit shaft though and I was impressed by this fella, which was making a deep loud and quite sobering humming. Its about the size of my house!
Note the wires in front of the camera: I pushed my hand past to get a better photo only to find they were electrified
got a real fright but fortunately it was a low voltage electric security fence. But it was a brown trouser moment feeling a big shock while standing next to a supergrid transformer This is my favorite shot which isn't bad for a camera phone...
