Hazard Colliery

Overview

A North Hetton Coal Company colliery at East Rainton, near Fence Houses, sunk from 1818. The larger sister of North Hetton (Moorsley) Colliery, it was joined with it in 1915, employed over 1,200 by 1921 and closed with it in 1935.

History

Hazard Colliery, also known as North Hetton, lay at East Rainton, five miles north-east of Durham near Fence Houses. Sinking began on 22 September 1818, and the Hazard Pit was sunk to the Hutton seam about that time. In the 1850s it belonged to the North Hetton Company, a partnership of the Earl of Durham with Wood, Philipson, Burrell and others, later the North Hetton Coal Company, and by the 1910s it was in the hands of Lambton and Hetton Collieries Ltd. Its coal went out by the North Hetton branch of the Rainton and Seaham Railway, whose embankment ran round the village cricket field, and the Tyne and Wear record counts it among the pits of Rainton Colliery. A row of six miners' cottages near it was called Hazard Pit Cottages.

In 1894 the colliery worked the Five Quarter at 53 fathoms, the Main Coal at 63, the Maudlin at 73 and the Low Main at 84, raising 340 tons a day with about 293 men and boys, and it also raised fireclay. The workforce, 201 in 1883, was 635 in 1915, the year the Hazard was joined with North Hetton, and 1,231 in 1921. By 1927 only the Five Quarter and the Main Coal were worked, with a drift in the Five Quarter by 1935, when 531 were employed. The Hazard closed with North Hetton in 1935, though parts of the mine were left until the early 1980s and the old wagon way until the late 1950s or early 1960s. The men it killed died singly, among them two boys of twelve crushed by runaway tubs in 1880 and 1889.

Geology

Durham Coal Measures: the Five Quarter at 53 fathoms (3 feet 7 inches), the Main Coal at 63 fathoms (5 feet), the Maudlin at 73 fathoms (3 feet 8 inches) and the Low Main at 84 fathoms (3 feet 6 inches), with the Hutton reached about 1818; fireclay was also raised.

Workings

The Hazard Pit, sunk to the Hutton about 1818; a drift in the Five Quarter by 1935; a wagon way to the North Hetton branch of the Rainton and Seaham Railway.

Closure

Closed with North Hetton Colliery in 1935, twenty years after the two were joined.

What remains

The embankment of the railway from the Hazard Pit now carries footpaths.

The former railway embankment.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• North Hetton Colliery — Sister pits of the North Hetton Coal Company, joined in 1915 and closed together in 1935.

Culture

• Hazard Colliery Cricket Club (Sports)
  The village cricket club played as Hazard Colliery CC from 1929 on a field ringed by the pit's railway embankment, mown each summer by a Hazard pit pony.

Recorded claims

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

• Hazard Colliery was opened in 1818; sinking started on 22 September 1818. ^1,2,3
• In 1894 the colliery worked four seams down to the Low Main at 84 fathoms, raising 340 tons a day with about 293 men and boys. ²
• The colliery employed 1,231 in 1921. ^1,2
• The Hazard closed in 1935 together with its sister pit, North Hetton (Moorsley) Colliery. ^1,4
• In the 1850s the owners were the North Hetton Coal Company: the Earl of Durham and Messrs Wood, Philipson, Burrell and others. ^2,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Moorsley Collieries (David Witham) — Hetton Local History Group
2. (primary) Hazard Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) HER 3212: Rainton/North Hetton Colliery, Hazard Pit — Sitelines (Tyne and Wear HER)
4. (secondary) HER 15733: Hazard Colliery Cricket Club — Sitelines (Tyne and Wear HER)

Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026