Backworth Colliery

Overview

A Northumberland-coalfield colliery north-east of Newcastle, worked through a shifting group of shafts from 1818 until 1980. Nine or more pits were sunk on the take over that time; the last of them, Eccles, was the deepest in the Northumberland coalfield at 1,440 feet and closed in June 1980, ending 165 years of mining around the village. Coal and fireclay were both raised, and the colliery's railway was among the last places in Britain where steam locomotives worked in industrial service.

History

Sinking at the A Pit began in 1813 and it drew its first coal on 10 September 1818. Other shafts followed steadily: the B Pit, sunk from June 1820 and opened in 1821; the C Pit from May 1856; the D Pit from March 1864; the Maude Pit from July 1872; and, in the twentieth century, the Eccles Pit in July 1905 and Prosperous in 1906. The B, C, D and E pits were all given up in the 1890s and Blue Bell in 1915, so the colliery's working shafts changed several times over its life without the colliery itself ever closing. Ownership changed as often. Humble, Lamb & Co. held it in the 1830s, the Backworth Colliery Company in the 1840s, Waldie & Co. in the 1850s, Maud, Taylor & Co. in the 1860s and J. C. Lamb & Co. in the 1880s, before it passed to the owners of Backworth and West Cramlington Collieries and then, in the 1910s, to Backworth Collieries Ltd. The National Coal Board took it over at nationalisation in 1947. Returns from the 1880s onward record fireclay raised alongside the coal, and brickmaking was carried on north of the village on the site of the former C Pit from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. By 1950 the collieries in and immediately around Backworth employed 2,905 people. Maude and Prosperous both closed in December 1960, leaving Eccles to work on alone. In the early 1970s the colliery's own railway system was one of the very few places in Britain where steam locomotives could still be seen at work, and several of them have since been preserved on heritage railways. Eccles closed in June 1980.

Geology

The colliery worked the Coal Measures of the Northumberland coalfield, the northern continuation of the Great Northern Coalfield. Seatearth fireclay beneath the coals was worked as a product in its own right and fed a brickworks on the site of the C Pit. The coals varied enough across the take for the annual returns to record coking, steam and gas coal from different shafts of the same colliery in the same year.

Workings

A group of shafts rather than a single pit: A, B, C, D and E, Blue Bell, Maude, Prosperous, Algernon and finally Eccles, sunk and abandoned at different dates across the take. Coal was worked with fireclay from at least the 1880s, the returns distinguishing coking, steam and gas coals from different pits in the same years. The colliery had its own railway to the staithes, worked by steam into the 1970s.

Closure

Maude and Prosperous closed in December 1960. Eccles, the last pit, closed in June 1980, ending 165 years of mining in the area.

What remains

The surface buildings were demolished apart from the colliery workshops, which back onto Station Road opposite the golf club and are in use as retail and light industrial units. The concrete caps over the backfilled A, Maude and Eccles shafts can still be seen on the colliery site. The former Miners' Welfare Hall grounds are now Backworth Golf Course.

Colliery workshops in reuse; concrete caps over the A, Maude and Eccles shafts.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Sinking at the A Pit began in 1813 and the pit drew its first coal on 10 September 1818. (high) ¹
• Eccles, Backworth's last pit, was the deepest in the Northumberland coalfield at 1,440 feet, and closed in 1980 after 165 years of mining in the area. (medium) ²
• As late as 1950, 2,905 people were employed in the collieries in and immediately around Backworth. (medium) ²
• Returns from 1883 onward record fireclay raised alongside the coal, and brickmaking was carried on north of the village on the site of the former C Pit from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. (medium) ^1,2
• In the early 1970s Backworth Colliery's railway was one of the few places in Britain where steam locomotives could still be seen at work; several have since been preserved. (medium) ²

Photographs & further reading

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) Durham Mining Museum: Backworth Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Backworth — Wikipedia

Record created: 3 September 2026 · Last researched: 3 September 2026