Montagu Colliery

Overview

William Benson and Sons' colliery at Scotswood on the western edge of Newcastle, where in 1925 shots fired in the Brockwell seam broke into the flooded workings of the long-abandoned Paradise Pit and drowned or suffocated 38 men and boys.

History

Montagu Colliery, in the parish of Sugley about three and a half miles west of Newcastle, is recorded as opened in 1750, its View Pit dating from 1765. It worked through the Caroline, View and Francis pits and was held by William Benson from the 1860s, becoming William Benson and Sons. From 31 December 1883 Thomas Walter Benson, William Robert Benson and Walter Benson leased 750 acres, including the Brockwell seam, west of a boundary beyond which the same seam had been worked until 1848 from the Paradise or West Benwell pit and then abandoned and left to flood. The old workings were known, but neither lease mentioned them. The colliery worked the Beaumont, Brockwell and Five Quarter seams and made fireclay, employing 1,345 in 1910 and 1,285 in 1925.

On 30 March 1925 bord and pillar working from the View Pit had come within 94 yards of the boundary, and shots fired in the Brockwell seam broke into the flooded Paradise workings, killing 38 men and boys (see Disasters, below). The View Pit never reopened and was abandoned in 1934. The Caroline and Francis pits worked on under the National Coal Board from 1947 until the colliery closed on 13 November 1959.

Geology

The Beaumont, Tilley, Five Quarter and Brockwell seams, with fireclay, and later the Low Main and Three Quarter; the Brockwell ran continuously beneath both the Montagu lease and the neighbouring lease with the abandoned Paradise workings.

Workings

The Caroline, View and Francis pits; the View Pit worked the Tilley and Brockwell seams by bord and pillar, and the Caroline Pit the Beaumont, Tilley, Five Quarter and Brockwell.

Closure

The View Pit never reopened after 1925 and was abandoned in 1934; the colliery closed on 13 November 1959.

What remains

The colliery site at Denton Burn is now green open space crossed by paths; its Miners' Welfare became the Denton Burn Community Centre. A later account says a cattle market occupied the View Pit site.

Grassed mounds and paths over the former colliery; a steel sculpture of a pitman, pony and two children, 'Yesterday, Today, Forever' (2012), at the junction of Fowberry Road and Denton Road; and the 1926 memorial cross in Elswick Cemetery.

Related mines

• Paradise Colliery — Water from Paradise's abandoned, flooded Brockwell workings broke into Montagu Colliery in the fatal 1925 inrush.

Disasters & major incidents

• Montagu Colliery explosion, 1891
  9 December 1891 · Explosion · 2 fatalities

  Two men recovering rails from an old part of Montagu Colliery, Scotswood, were killed on 9 December 1891 when gas fired at their lamps.

  On the evening of 9 December 1891 the putter Thomas Halliday, 17, and the rolleywayman Joseph Ryan, 27, were getting rails out of an old part of Montagu Colliery, west of Newcastle, when gas ignited at their lamps. Halliday was killed and Ryan died the next day. Halliday's surname is spelt Holliday in one list.

• Montagu View Pit disaster, 1925
  30 March 1925 · Flooding / Inundation · 38 fatalities
  An inrush at the View Pit of Montagu Colliery, Scotswood, on the morning of 30 March 1925. Three shots fired to straighten a coal face broke the last six inches of coal holding back the flooded workings of the Paradise Pit, abandoned in 1848, and water under about 80 pounds per square inch filled the workings. Of the 148 men and boys in the seam, 38 died: seventeen suffocated by blackdamp before the water reached them, the rest drowned. The public inquiry found that plans of the old workings existed but were not in the colliery's hands, and its recommendations reshaped the law on abandoned-mine plans.

Culture

• John Peace (Art)
  Peace painted the Montagu pit yard after its demolition in 1961 and at least five more times; the 1961 oil is in a private collection, the others are missing.
• The Stars Look Down (Literature)
  North East accounts describe the novel's Neptune pit flood as loosely based on the 1925 inrush at Montagu, which killed 38 men and boys.

What's uncertain

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

• A Tyne and Wear HER entry says the View Pit never reopened and a cattle market later occupied the site. (uncertain) ⁴
• A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel The Stars Look Down is said to contain a thinly disguised account of the disaster; a centenary booklet was published in 2025 by the St James Heritage and Environment Group and the Newcastle Mining Institute. (uncertain) ⁶

Recorded claims

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

• The Bensons leased 750 acres from 31 December 1883; the Brockwell seam next door had been worked to 1848 from the Paradise or West Benwell pit and left flooded, and neither lease mentioned the old workings. ¹
• DMM records the colliery as opened in 1750 with Caroline, Francis and View pits (View 1765-1934), owned by William Benson and Sons, and closed on 13 November 1959. ²
• A covered cross by William Curry of Birtley was unveiled at Elswick Cemetery on 6 June 1926; the sculpture 'Yesterday, Today, Forever' was unveiled in Denton Burn in 2012. ^3,4
• The former Montague Colliery site at Denton Burn is grassed open space; its Miners' Welfare is now Denton Burn Community Centre (2014). ⁵
• A Tyne and Wear HER entry says the View Pit never reopened and a cattle market later occupied the site. (uncertain) ⁴
• A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel The Stars Look Down is said to contain a thinly disguised account of the disaster; a centenary booklet was published in 2025 by the St James Heritage and Environment Group and the Newcastle Mining Institute. (uncertain) ⁶
• The artist John Peace painted 'Montagu Pit Yard After Demolition' in 1961, one of six known paintings of the subject, five of them now missing. ⁷

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Montagu Colliery Inrush – Scotswood – 1925 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Montagu Main Colliery (Durham Mining Museum) — Durham Mining Museum
3. (observational) Yesterday, Today, Forever in Denton Burn — Fabulous North
4. (primary) Elswick Cemetery, Montague Pit Disaster Memorial (HER 5047) — Tyne and Wear Historic Environment Record (Sitelines)
5. (observational) Site of former Montague Colliery, Denton Burn (Geograph photo 3905729, 2014) — Geograph Britain and Ireland
6. (secondary) Pit disaster centenary to be commemorated (Tony Henderson, 28 March 2025) — Cultured North East
7. (secondary) The Montagu Pit Disaster (17 March 2025) — John Peace Paintings

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 17 September 2026