Shiremoor Colliery (Blue Bell Pit)

HER Number

2192

District

N Tyneside

Site Name

Shiremoor Colliery (Blue Bell Pit)

Place

Shiremoor

Map Sheet

NZ37SW

Class

Industrial

Site Type: Broad

Coal Mining Site

Site Type: Specific

Colliery

General Period

POST MEDIEVAL

Specific Period

Victorian 1837 to 1901

Form of Evidence

Documentary Evidence

Description

Shiremoor Colliery, with a link to the North Eastern Railway, through the Blyth and Tyne Branch (HER 1055). Owners were Backworth and West Cramlington Collieries. Bought by Backworth Collieries from Shiremoor Coal Company in 1896. Samuel Young Lilley died on 15 December 1896, aged 16. He was a Way End Boy. The rope on the engine plane had broken and struck him. In 1902 the first electric coal-cutter was tried out at the Blue Bell Pit. Closed in 1915.

Easting

431300

Northing

571060

Grid Reference

NZ431300571060

Sources

<< HER 2192 >> 2nd edition Ordnance Survey map, 1898, 6 inch scale, Northumberland, 89, NW; Durham Mining Museum www.dmm.org.uk; James T. Tuck, 1993, Collieries of Northumberland, Vol 1; John Elliott & Derek Charlton, 1994, Backworth - An Illustrated History of the Mines and Railways; Roy Thompson, 2004, Thunder Underground - Northumberland Mine Disasters 1815-65, photo on p 170; Shiremoor Local History Group, The history of Backworth Colliery (in HER 2010/147)