Mickley Colliery

Also known as	Mickley Drift
Location	Stocksfield, eight and a half miles east of Hexham, Northumberland — 54.9569, -1.8844 (approximate)
Commodity	Coal
Type	Coal
Worked	By 1855–After 1935
Maximum depth	No reliable shaft depth has yet been located.
Operators	Cookson, Cuthberts & Liddell (1850–1880), Mickley Coal Co. (1882–?)

Overview

A Tyne valley colliery at Stocksfield, returning coal from 1855 and the larger of the two pits that gave the Mickley Coal Company its name — the other being Prudhoe, three miles east. It was worked by Cookson, Cuthberts & Liddell in the 1850s and by the Mickley Coal Co. from the 1880s, selling coking and gas coal and later household and steam. Employment ran between 500 and 660 for forty years before collapsing to 228 in 1935.

History

Mickley returns coal in the Mineral Statistics from 1855 and was working by 1854. Cookson, Cuthberts & Liddell held it in the 1850s; by the 1880s it belonged to the Mickley Coal Company, which took its name from this pit and also worked Prudhoe and West Wylam, all three under the manager Thomas Bates. It was much the larger of the company’s two Tyne valley collieries. In 1894 Mickley employed 640 people against Prudhoe’s 385, and it held that scale for four decades: 576 in 1900, 542 in 1910, 616 in 1921, 659 in 1925 and 660 in 1930, with between 400 and 560 of them underground. The output was coking and gas coal from 1894, with household and steam grades added by 1925. Then it fell away sharply — 228 in 1935, of whom 162 worked below ground — the same collapse that took Prudhoe from 316 in 1924 to 61 in 1930. Both pits belong to the contraction of the Northumberland coalfield between the wars rather than to any local failure.

Geology

The Coal Measures of the Tyne valley on the north-western edge of the Northumberland and Durham coalfield, where the productive seams lie shallow — the same ground and the same seams as Prudhoe three miles east. The combined Mickley and Prudhoe abandonment plan covers the Six Quarter, Towneley, Five Quarter, Yard, Horsley Wood and unnamed seams worked between 1816 and 1863, so both pits were taking up workings older than either of them.

Workings

A shaft colliery with a drift alongside it — the Mickley Drift is listed among the company’s workings — in ground already threaded with earlier workings. The abandonment plans catalogued in 1934 are shared with Prudhoe under the heading "Mickley and Prudhoe", covering the parishes of Chopwell in Durham and Prudhoe, Prudhoe Castle, Wylam, Eltringham, Mickley, Hedley and Dukes Hagg in Northumberland; they were held by W. Armstrong and Sons of Collingwood Street, Newcastle, having formerly been with A. Mundle and Son.

Closure

No closure date has been found. The colliery last appears in the returns read here in 1935, employing 228 people against 660 five years earlier, and the plans of the combined Mickley and Prudhoe workings were catalogued in 1934 — which suggests the end came in the mid-1930s, but the catalogue entry is not a closure record and the Durham Mining Museum leaves the closure field blank.

What remains

No specific present-day description of the colliery site has been established. Mickley is now a village between Stocksfield and Prudhoe and the pit ground has been built over or returned to farmland.

No surviving surface structure has been identified from the sources read.

Related mines

Prudhoe Colliery — Two pits of one company three miles apart: the Mickley Coal Co. worked both under the manager Thomas Bates, and their abandonment plans are catalogued jointly as "Mickley and Prudhoe". Mickley was much the larger — 640 employed in 1894 against Prudhoe’s 385.

Nearby mines

Prudhoe Colliery — 1.7 km NE
Chopwell Colliery — 3.9 km S, Tyne and Wear
Wylam Colliery — 5.1 km E
Healeyfield Mine — 13.6 km S, County Durham
Fallowfield Mine — 14.7 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.

Mickley Colliery at Stocksfield was owned by Cookson, Cuthberts & Liddell in the 1850s and by the Mickley Coal Co. from the 1880s. The company also owned the Mickley Drift and the Prudhoe and West Wylam collieries, managed by Thomas Bates in the early 1880s. ^1,2
Mickley employed 640 people in 1894, of whom 489 worked below ground, against 385 at Prudhoe in the same year. It employed 576 in 1900, 542 in 1910, 616 in 1921, 659 in 1925 and 660 in 1930. ¹
Employment fell to 228 in 1935, of whom 162 worked underground — a third of the 1930 figure. ¹
The colliery returned coal from 1855; its output is listed as coking and gas coal from 1894, with household and steam grades added from 1925. ¹
The abandonment plans are catalogued jointly as "Mickley and Prudhoe", covering the Six Quarter, Towneley, Five Quarter, Yard, Horsley Wood and unnamed seams worked between 1816 and 1863, under the parishes of Chopwell in Durham and Prudhoe, Prudhoe Castle, Wylam, Eltringham, Mickley, Hedley and Dukes Hagg in Northumberland. ³

Photographs & further reading

Mickley Colliery — Durham Mining Museum (reference)

The colliery’s statistical record: owners from the 1850s, output grades, year-by-year employment from 1894 to 1935, and the recorded deaths.

View source

Sources

(primary) Mickley Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
(primary) Mickley Coal Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
(primary) Catalogue of Plans of Abandoned Mines for Mickley Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 8 September 2026 · Last researched: 8 September 2026