Nettlesworth Colliery

Overview

A colliery near Edmondsley, sunk to the Hutton seam in 1861 by Elliot and Hunter and worked out by 1894, then kept as a pumping station. The Nettlesworth Drift, worked by the Waldridge Coal Company and the Coal Board, carried the name on until 27 September 1974.

History

Boring was in progress at Nettlesworth in 1840, and coal was being raised there by the 1850s. In 1861 a new pit was sunk from the surface to the Hutton seam. The colliery was worked with Kimblesworth by Sir George Elliot and William Hunter, who in 1878 built the Kimblesworth Colliery School at their own expense; at Nettlesworth the Five Quarter seam, three feet thick, lay at 14 fathoms. It employed 233 people in 1883, but the Five Quarter, Main, Low Main and Hutton seams were abandoned as exhausted in 1894. Under the Charlaw and Sacriston Collieries Company it then served for thirty years as a pumping station in the Brass Thill, with a handful of men.

The Nettlesworth Drift, on Waldridge Fell, belonged to the Waldridge Coal Company in the 1940s; the Coal Board's list dates it from 1938. At nationalisation it employed 155 and raised 50,000 tons of household and steam coal, reaching 193 people in 1950. It worked the Five Quarter and Shield Row and later the Brass Thill, Hutton and Low Main, through the Dene Drift No. 2, with about 110 to 140 men through the 1960s. The drift closed on 27 September 1974, the date of its last Low Main plans.

Geology

Durham coalfield: the Five Quarter, Main, Low Main, Hutton, Brass Thill and Shield Row seams.

Workings

A pit of 1861 to the Hutton seam, a pumping station from 1894; the Nettlesworth Drift and Dene Drift No. 2 (to 1974); east and west drifts in the Shield Row.

Closure

The colliery's seams were abandoned as exhausted in 1894 and it became a pumping station; the Nettlesworth Drift closed on 27 September 1974.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Felling Colliery — Collieries of Sir George Elliot.
• Pen-y-fan Colliery — Collieries of Sir George Elliot.
• Sacriston Colliery — Charlaw and Sacriston Collieries Company pits; Nettlesworth was its pumping station from the 1890s.
• Usworth Colliery — Collieries of Sir George Elliot.

Recorded claims

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

• In 1861 a new pit at Nettlesworth was sunk from the surface to the Hutton seam. ¹
• In 1894 the Five Quarter, Main, Low Main and Hutton seams were abandoned as exhausted, and the colliery became a pumping station. ¹
• The Nettlesworth Drift employed 155 people in 1947, when it raised 50,000 tons, and closed on 27 September 1974. ^2,3
• Nettlesworth, Edmondsley, a drift mine, is listed from 1938 to September 1974. ⁴
• Nettlesworth and Kimblesworth collieries were worked by Messrs Hunter and Elliott. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Nettlesworth Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Nettlesworth Drift — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS mine plan: Nettlesworth (Dene Drift No 2), Low Main, abandoned 27 September 1974 — BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans
4. (secondary) NCB Collieries - England (Northern Mine Research Society) — Northern Mine Research Society

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