Prudhoe Colliery

Overview

A Northumberland colliery on the south bank of the Tyne at Prudhoe, returning coal from 1860 and worked into the 1930s. It was John Johnson’s in the 1860s and the Mickley Coal Company’s from the 1880s, and sold coking, gas, household and steam coal from a set of shallow seams — Brockwell, Yard, Tilley, Five Quarter, Six Quarter — that had been worked in this ground since at least 1816. It employed 385 men and boys in 1894, and 61 in 1930. Sixteen deaths are recorded here, and all but a few of them happened on the haulage roads.

History

Coal was being got in this ground long before the colliery took its modern shape: the abandonment plan for the combined Mickley and Prudhoe workings covers seams worked between 1816 and 1863, under the parishes of Prudhoe, Prudhoe Castle, Mickley, Eltringham, Wylam, Hedley and Dukes Hagg in Northumberland and Chopwell in Durham. Prudhoe Colliery itself first returns coal in the Mineral Statistics for 1860, when it was in the hands of John Johnson. By 1882 it belonged to the Mickley Coal Company, which also worked Mickley alongside it under the manager Thomas Bates. For half a century the colliery sold a wide range of coal — coking and gas coal from 1894, with household and steam grades added by the 1920s — and employed something between 260 and 390 people, nine in ten of them underground. The peak recorded is 385 in 1894. Then it fell away sharply: 316 in 1924, 141 in 1925, 90 in 1927, when the pit was temporarily closed in the September. It reopened, but never recovered: 57 in 1929 and 61 in 1930, the last year in which it appears in the government List of Mines.

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 colliery worked a group of them over the years: Brockwell alone in 1905, with Six Quarter and Yard added by 1910 and Five Quarter, Hutton and Low Main by 1915, settling by the 1920s on Brockwell, Five Quarter, Six Quarter, Tilley and Yard. Fireclay was got with the coal from the Low Main.

Workings

A shaft colliery with an engine plane and rolleyways carrying tubs in and out by rope haulage, and putters bringing full tubs from the face to the flat. The drag — a wedge pushed into a tub wheel to slow it — was the brake on the self-acting runs, and the inquest testimony recorded for the colliery turns repeatedly on it working loose. Ponies were used in-bye, with a horsekeeper on the strength. Shot firing was done with gunpowder charged into hand-drilled holes. Four sets of abandonment plans were catalogued in 1934: one for Mickley and Prudhoe together, covering Six Quarter, Towneley, Five Quarter, Yard, Horsley Wood and unnamed seams worked between 1816 and 1863; one for coal and fireclay in the Low Main, dated 1904; one for the Five Quarter, dated 1857; and a fourth simply headed Prudhoe. All were held by W. Armstrong and Sons of Collingwood Street, Newcastle, having formerly been with A. Mundle and Son; the plans of abandoned mines are now held by the Coal Authority.

Closure

No reliable closure date has yet been located. The colliery was temporarily closed in September 1927, reopened, and last appears in the 1930 List of Mines with 61 employees, 52 of them underground. Plans of its abandoned workings were catalogued in 1934, which suggests the end came in the early 1930s, but the catalogue entry is not itself a closure record and the Durham Mining Museum’s own page leaves the closure field blank.

What remains

No specific present-day description of the colliery site has been established. Prudhoe is now a town of some size and the pit ground has been built over or returned to farmland; the industrial estate at Low Prudhoe occupies the flat land beside the river and the A695.

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

Nearby mines

• Wylam Colliery — 3.6 km E
• Chopwell Colliery — 5.3 km S, Tyne and Wear
• West Stanley Colliery — 14.8 km SE, County Durham
• Healeyfield Mine — 14.9 km S, County Durham

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.

• Prudhoe Colliery was owned by John Johnson in the 1860s and by the Mickley Coal Company from the 1880s; the company’s 1882 return lists Mickley and Prudhoe together under the manager Thomas Bates. ^1,2
• The colliery returned coal from 1860. From 1894 its output is listed as coking and gas coal; household coal is added from 1923 and steam coal appears in 1923 and again from 1929. ¹
• Employment peaked in the recorded returns at 385 in 1894, of whom 356 worked below ground. It stood at 316 in 1924, 141 in 1925 and 90 in 1927, when the pit was temporarily closed in September; it was 57 in 1929 and 61 in 1930. ¹
• The colliery worked the Brockwell seam alone in 1905, Brockwell with Six Quarter and Yard by 1910, and Brockwell, Five Quarter, Hutton, Low Main, Six Quarter and Yard by 1915; from 1921 the returns settle on Brockwell, Five Quarter, Six Quarter, Tilley and Yard. ¹
• The abandonment plan for the combined Mickley and Prudhoe workings covers 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. ^3,4
• A separate abandonment plan for the parishes of Prudhoe and Mickley records coal and fireclay worked in the Low Main, dated 1904. ³
• Sixteen deaths are recorded at the colliery between 1874 and 1917. Most were on the haulage: men and boys crushed between trucks or by their own tubs, run over by a set, or knocked against the roof while riding out-bye. John Ellison, a putter of 21, was killed instantly in March 1893 when a following putter lost control of a tub whose drag had worked loose; Walter Smith, a rolleywayman of 40, fell and was run over in 1898 while trying to climb along a moving set he had no permission to ride. Falls of roof and stone account for most of the rest. ¹
• Robert McVinnie, a stoneman of 25, died on 8 August 1901 of injuries received on 31 July. He and his marrow were charging a hole with gunpowder when the cartridge stuck, the hole being too small; they were forcing it in with a hammer and beater when the charge exploded. ¹
• The Durham Mining Museum records no disaster of five or more killed at Prudhoe Colliery. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Prudhoe Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Mickley Coal Co. — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Catalogue of Plans of Abandoned Mines for Prudhoe Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (primary) BGS mine plans catalogue: Mickley and Prudhoe, and Low Prudhoe — British Geological Survey

Record created: 6 September 2026 · Last researched: 7 September 2026