Neptune Colliery

Fictional record. This page describes a mine from a fictional setting, not a real place. Information is based on the cited canon, with adaptations and interpretation distinguished where necessary. It is kept separate from the real MineArchive corpus — see Fictional.

Overview

The Neptune is the Barras family colliery at Sleescale in A. J. Cronin's The Stars Look Down, the pit around which the whole novel turns. Its working seams run out under the sea, the Paradise lowest of all, and the Paradise's Scupper Flats lie against the Universal Dyke, a downthrow fault with the waterlogged waste of the Old Neptune on its far side. Richard Barras takes a coking-coal contract, strips the coal off the Dyke to fill it, and a Monday-morning inrush drowns or suffocates most of a shift of 105 men and boys, the last nine dying in the old waste before the rescuers can reach them (see the disaster record). The inquiry compliments Barras; the novel follows the pit through the war, Arthur Barras's reforming ownership, the strikes of 1921 and 1926 and its sale to Mawson & Gowlan, and ends with David Fenwick, once a horse putter in the Paradise, walking back to the cage under the new headstocks.

History

Peter Barras sank No. 1 shaft into the Snook in 1805, the pit 'known now as the Old Neptune'; his son William sank Nos. 2 and 3, and Richard's father Peter William bored No. 4, 'a shrewd and well-judged stroke' from which Richard Barras, the owner in 1910, 'was now benefiting hugely'. The novel opens on a three-month strike against working in water in the Paradise, where the men are 'stripping the Dyke in Scupper Flats': Robert Fenwick, a hewer who has spent twenty-five years in the wet, argues that the Universal Dyke, 'a down throw fault that runs due north and south', is the only barrier between the Flats and the flooded low levels of the Old Neptune waste, and that no plans of those workings exist because 'there's no law about mines abandoned afore 1872'. Barras beats the strike by abandoning the Flats, then, in 1913, wins a coking-coal contract from P. W. & Company and restarts them. His son Arthur, brought in as a partner, hears the warning at the pit; David Fenwick, by then a teacher, puts it to Barras directly and is told that if his father does not like the Paradise he can leave it. The inrush follows (see below). At the six-day inquiry held under Section 83 of the Coal Mines Act in Sleescale Town Hall in July 1914, with Harry Nugent MP appearing for the men, the Commissioner congratulates Barras on his 'heroic efforts' in the rescue, and David goes back into the pit convinced that the man to blame has been cheered and let go. Barras, who has known the old workings all along, prospers on wartime coal, sits on the tribunal that imprisons his conscientious-objector son, and is felled by a stroke in 1918. Arthur, released from prison, takes over and spends the family money on 'a new Neptune': pit-head baths, drying rooms, locker rooms, new pumps and equipment ordered from Mawson & Gowlan, and safety before profit. The post-war slump, the lock-out of 1921 and the General Strike of 1926 break him; four hundred men are laid off in October 1926, Bannerman the lawyer brings 'the only offer', and the Neptune is sold to Mawson & Gowlan, Joe Gowlan negotiating. In the last pages the pit stands 'reclaimed and restarted by Mawson, Gowlan & Co.', Gowlan has moved into the Law, the Barras house, and David, beaten in the election by Gowlan, goes back down the Neptune with his nephew Sammy as his trapper, the trucks in the yard lettered MAWSON & GOWLAN and 'the new headstocks of the Neptune, higher than before, dominating the town, the harbour, and the sea'.

Workings

A shaft colliery with headgear, steam winding, a fan and pumps at Neptune No. 17, and older shafts in the Snook, of which the Old Scupperhole is the rescuers' way in. Three seams: the Five Quarter, where David remembers 'that he was under the sea'; Globe Coal, two hundred feet below it; and the Paradise a hundred feet lower, 'the lowest level of the Neptune pit', five hundred feet down and two miles from the shaft, divided into the Mixen and the Scupper Flats. Coal is hewn at headings and faces, filled into tubs by fillers, drawn by horse putters with galloways to the landing and hauled by mechanical rope along the Paradise and Globe main roads; a checkweigher at the bank, a deputy who examines the district and writes his statutory report before each shift, a fireman in each seam and an under-viewer and manager over them. The Flats run against the whinstone of the Dyke, 'so wet, his feet made squelching noises', and a hogger-pump was asked for and refused. After the disaster the shafts are refitted with new pumps, one of 250 gallons a minute at the main winding and a turbine of 450 in the upcast.

Real-world mining concepts used here: Abandonment Plan, Chokedamp, Deputy, Fireman, HM Chief Inspector of Mines, Inrush, Putter, Faults and Fractures, Sedimentary Beds and Seams

Closure

None; the pit is flooded, dewatered and reopened after the disaster, closed by the 1926 strike and reopened by its new owners.

What became of it

Working under Mawson, Gowlan & Co. at the novel's close, in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Canon & adaptations

Carol Reed's 1940 film (Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood) compresses the story so that the strike, the secret contract and the disaster follow one another and Davey exposes the Gowlan-Barras deal himself; its pit-head scenes were shot at St Helens Colliery, Siddick, near Workington in Cumberland, not on the Northumberland coast. A 1975 Granada television serial also exists and has not been consulted. The novel gives the inrush no calendar date: it happens on a snowy Monday morning in the winter before the inquiry of July 1914.

Disasters & major incidents

• The Neptune Colliery Inrush (The Stars Look Down)
  A snowy Monday morning in the winter before July 1914; the novel gives no calendar date · Flooding / Inundation
  The inrush that floods the Paradise and Globe Coal seams of the Neptune Colliery in The Stars Look Down when water from the abandoned Old Neptune workings holes through Scupper No. 6 Branch, killing most of a shift of 105 men and boys within fifteen minutes and entombing nine more, who die in the old waste before the rescuers blasting in from the Old Scupperhole shaft can reach them.

Related fictional records

The Neptune Colliery Inrush (The Stars Look Down)

Recorded claims

Each claim is marked with its basis — explicit canon, MineArchive inference, adaptation only, or fandom interpretation — and attached to the source(s) below. Where tellings disagree, both are kept.

• Peter Barras sank No. 1 shaft into the Snook in 1805 (the Old Neptune), William Barras sank Nos. 2 and 3, and Peter William Barras bored No. 4; the family had worked the Neptune pits for a hundred years by 1910. (explicit canon) ¹
• The Paradise, 'the lowest level of the Neptune pit', lay five hundred feet down and two miles from the main shaft, with Globe Coal two hundred feet above and Five Quarter a hundred feet higher still; David remembered in the Five Quarter that he was under the sea. (explicit canon) ¹
• Robert Fenwick described the Universal Dyke as 'a down throw fault that runs due north and south', the barrier between Scupper Flats and the waterlogged waste of the Old Neptune, and said the company had no plans of the old workings because no law covered mines abandoned before 1872. (explicit canon) ¹
• The novel opens on a three-month strike against working in the water of Scupper Flats, which Barras ends by declaring that the coking coal 'must await another contract' and refusing the hogger-pump his under-viewer asked for. (explicit canon) ¹
• Barras restarted the Flats on a coking-coal contract with P. W. & Company, telling Arthur 'Start to strip the Dyke in Scupper Flats'. (explicit canon) ¹
• A formal Inquiry under Section 83 of the Coal Mines Act sat for six days from 27 July 1914, heard fifty-four witnesses, and closed with the Commissioner congratulating Barras on his heroic efforts for the entombed men; Harry Nugent MP used it to press the Mines Department on abandoned waterlogged mines. (explicit canon) ¹
• After his father's stroke in 1918 Arthur set out to 'make a new Neptune', putting in pit-head baths, drying rooms and locker rooms and ordering equipment from Mawson & Gowlan. (explicit canon) ¹
• After the lock-out of 1921 and the General Strike of 1926, with four hundred men laid off in October 1926, the Neptune was sold on Bannerman's 'only offer' to Mawson & Gowlan, Joe Gowlan negotiating, and was 'reclaimed and restarted by Mawson, Gowlan & Co.'. (explicit canon) ¹
• Lord Kell, 'millionaire landowner of the North', was owner of the Neptune royalties. (explicit canon) ¹
• Carol Reed's 1940 film shot its colliery scenes at St Helens Colliery, Siddick, in Cumberland, and has Davey discover the Gowlan-Barras contract himself. (adaptation only) ²

Sources

1. (primary canon) The Stars Look Down (Victor Gollancz, 1935), full text — A. J. Cronin; Internet Archive (Digital Library of India scan, OCR text)
2. (interpretation) The Stars Look Down (film) — Wikipedia
3. (interpretation) The Stars Look Down — Wikipedia

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026