Boosbeck Mine

Overview

An East Cleveland ironstone mine sunk in the early 1870s on the edge of the village it gave its name to, worked by Stevenson, Jaques and Company and known locally as Stivvy's. It employed 383 men in 1883, the year it wrecked the village above it: pillars were taken out under the streets, the ground came down, and up to two hundred houses were damaged in a subsidence that ended in court and bankrupted the landowner. A heavy water feeder struck in 1886 finished it, and the workings were abandoned in 1887 with about 1,200 men out of work across the company's Boosbeck pits. Nothing of the mine survives above ground but a capped shaft in a playing field.

History

Boosbeck lies in the belt of ironstone mines between Guisborough and Brotton that opened as the Cleveland field expanded westward and inland through the 1870s, alongside Lingdale, Kilton and Grinkle. Two shafts were sunk to 288 feet in 1872 on a lease held by Stevenson, Jaques and Company, whose name the village shortened to Stivvy's; the Durham Mining Museum's record of the mine begins with the Lists of Mines in 1873, and the company appears in the 1880s returns as Jacques, Stevenson & Co. The mine was substantial at its height, employing 383 men in 1883, and it was worked bord-and-pillar in the Cleveland manner, with the pillars later split into quarters so that the ironstone in them could be taken too. That second working destroyed the village. The first damage was reported in Albion Street and Gerrie Street at the end of July 1883; a constable living at 3 Albion Street described his door refusing to close on the Tuesday night, cracks in the wall by nine the next morning, the wall parted an inch by eleven, and part of it nearly falling on his child at noon. Floors heaved, walls opened, the ground outside cracked, and seventeen families had moved their furniture out by four in the afternoon. By late August the damage had spread to Fenton Street and Carnie Street and reached fifty or sixty houses, and it was still spreading north through the village in November. The case reached court early in 1884, by which time two hundred houses had been damaged; it was found that the trouble came from improper working of the ironstone, the actions were brought against the landowner Christopher Jackson, and by March his properties and liabilities had passed to Stevenson, Jaques and Company with an assessor appointed to settle compensation. The mine manager told the court he had been removing the pillars under the village on the landowner's orders. The end came from water rather than law. In February 1886 a substantial feeder was struck and began to flood the workings. Bigger pumps would have been needed to hold it, and the mineowners asked the royalty owners to help pay for them; the royalty owners did not attend the conference called to discuss it, and Joseph Toyn, president of the Cleveland Miners' Association, called their apathy discreditable and un-English in a public appeal in March 1887. Production ended and the mine was abandoned that month, putting about 1,200 men out of work across the Boosbeck mines. Everything worked afterwards in this ground came under South Skelton mine next door: the Durham Mining Museum's 1896 return gives 275 employed for Boosbeck and South Skelton combined, and by 1900 Boosbeck is simply noted as included in South Skelton.

Geology

The mine worked the Cleveland ironstone, a sedimentary bed of Jurassic age lying in seams through the Lias of the Cleveland Hills and worked here at around 288 feet. The overlying ground was the mine's undoing twice over: a thick bed of running sand carrying much water lay above the ironstone — 51 feet of it was recorded in the nearby South Skelton shaft — which made the surface less able to bridge the goaf left by pillar extraction, and the water in the ground eventually beat the pumps.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Two shafts, sunk to 288 feet in 1872, with bord-and-pillar working of the ironstone seam. The abandonment plan reproduced by East Cleveland's Industrial Heartland shows the ordinary large bord-and-pillar workings in one part of the take, an area of split pillars quartered for total extraction in the centre, and a goafed area beneath Albion Street where the pillars had been drawn entirely — the pattern that brought the streets down in 1883.

Closure

A substantial water feeder was struck in February 1886 and flooded parts of the workings. The owners could not fund the larger pumps needed without help from the royalty owners, who did not come to the conference called about it, and the mine was abandoned in March 1887. The Durham Mining Museum gives the closure as 1886, which is the year the water was struck rather than the year working stopped. The 1888 and 1894 Lists of Mines show the mine standing with nobody employed under the Clay Lane Iron Company.

What remains

Virtually nothing of the mine is visible. The site is a playing field, and a concrete block in the middle of it carries a plaque recording a filled upshaft 90 metres deep and 3.4 metres across, filled and capped in 1986; a slight hollow nearby marks the second shaft. A 2009 account notes a patch of concrete about eight feet from the monument, which may be another cap or the base of a building. The mine's own buildings are gone, and no contemporary photograph of it is known.

The capped shaft and its plaque, and the ground pattern of sidings and earthworks still legible on aerial imagery. In the village itself a sculpture of an ironstone miner by J. Godbold of Egton was unveiled in July 2010, and the village name sign carries tiles of mining scenes made by local children.

Nearby mines

• Skelton Park Pit — 1.1 km NE
• North Skelton Mine — 1.5 km NE, Yorkshire
• Lumpsey Mine — 3.4 km NE
• Kilton Mine — 4.4 km NE
• Kirkleatham Ironstone Mine — 5.3 km W

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

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

• Two shafts were sunk to 288 feet in 1872 under a lease held by Stevenson, Jaques and Company; the Durham Mining Museum gives the opening as 1873, the year the mine first appears in the Lists of Mines. (disputed) ^1,2
• Production ended and the mine was abandoned in March 1887 after a water feeder struck in February 1886 flooded parts of the workings; the Durham Mining Museum records the closure as 1886. (disputed) ^1,3
• Up to two hundred houses in Boosbeck were damaged by subsidence from 1883, found in court to have been caused by improper working of the ironstone; the mine manager said he had removed the pillars under the village on the landowner's orders. ⁴
• 383 men were employed in 1883. By 1896 the Lists of Mines give 275 for Boosbeck and South Skelton combined, and in 1900 Boosbeck is noted as included in South Skelton. ¹
• A plaque on a concrete block in the playing field records a filled upshaft 90 metres deep and 3.4 metres in diameter, filled and capped in 1986. ^2,5

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Boosbeck (Ironstone) — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Boosbeck Ironstone Mine — East Cleveland's Industrial Heartland
3. (secondary) Closing of the Boosbeck Mines – 1887 – 1200 jobless — East Cleveland's Industrial Heartland
4. (secondary) Mining Subsidence in Boosbeck – 1883 — East Cleveland's Industrial Heartland
5. (observational) Boosbeck Mine Shaft — Hidden Teesside

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026