Chirm Colliery

Overview

A small colliery at Longhorsley, in Wingates parish, marked on the 1860s map, whose Plough Pit and Success Pit raised landsale and household coal from a two-foot seam with about a dozen men until it was abandoned in 1927.

History

Chirm Colliery, also called Chirm Pit, lay near Longhorsley, about twelve and a half miles south-south-west of Alnwick, in the parish of Wingates. It is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of the 1860s and returned coal in 1860 and 1865, when John Straker owned it. Thomas Temple owned it and managed it himself in the 1880s, selling landsale coal, and by the 1910s it belonged to the Brinkburn Coal Company.

It had two named shafts. The Plough Pit went through 84 feet of clay and soil to a two-foot coal at 88 feet; the Success Pit, sunk from about 530 feet above sea level through freestone, metal and whin, reached a two-foot coal at 116 feet. An earlier section at the colliery found a coal 1 foot 10 inches thick at 147 feet. About a dozen men worked it between 1900 and 1910, raising household coal under Matthew Taylor, who held no certificate; from 1905 the seam is recorded as the Rothley or Limestone Coal. The Chirm seam was abandoned in 1917. In 1925 eight men, six of them on the surface, worked the Chirm seam again under G. Dixon, and it was abandoned for good in 1927.

Geology

A thin coal, about two feet, worked as the Rothley or Limestone Coal and later as the Chirm or Little Limestone seam.

Workings

Two shafts, the Plough Pit and the Success Pit.

Closure

The Chirm seam was abandoned on 30 June 1917; the Chirm or Little Limestone was abandoned on 14 April 1927, and the colliery is recorded as closed in May 1927.

What remains

The site has been reclaimed.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The Chirm or Little Limestone seam was abandoned on 14 April 1927. (disputed) ⁷
• Chirm Colliery closed in May 1927. (disputed) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• Chirm Colliery was owned by John Straker in the 1860s, Thomas Temple in the 1880s and the Brinkburn Coal Company in the 1910s. ^1,2
• The Plough Pit at Chirm passed through 84 feet of clay and soil to a two-foot coal at 88 feet. ³
• The Success Pit at Chirm reached a two-foot coal at 116 feet. ⁴
• The Chirm seam at Chirm Colliery was abandoned on 30 June 1917. ^5,6
• The Chirm or Little Limestone seam was abandoned on 14 April 1927. (disputed) ⁷
• Chirm Colliery closed in May 1927. (disputed) ¹
• Chirm employed between eleven and fourteen men from 1900 to 1910. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Chirm Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Chirm Colliery — North East Heritage Library (Coals Archive)
3. (primary) Chirm Colliery: account of strata sunk through in the Plough Pit — Durham Mining Museum
4. (primary) Chirm Colliery: account of strata sunk through in the Success Pit — Durham Mining Museum
5. (primary) Chirm Colliery: catalogue of plans of abandoned mines — Durham Mining Museum
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21915210: Chirm, Chirm seam, abandoned 30 June 1917 — British Geological Survey
7. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21905334: Chirm, Chirm or Little Limestone seam, abandoned 14 April 1927 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 22 October 2026 · Last researched: 22 October 2026