Stonechester Colliery

Overview

A small drift colliery at Stonechester near Hamsterley, in Evenwood and Barony parish, on a web of tramways between High and Low Stonechester; it worked the Main or Brockwell seam with three to seven men in the 1900s and again in 1929.

History

Stonechester Colliery lay at Stonechester, near Hamsterley, in the parish of Evenwood and Barony, about twelve and a half miles south-west of Durham. The country between High and Low Stonechester was crossed by tramways and waggonways from around the 1880s, linking a number of drift mines and running west to a coal working near Marsfield; many of those workings had died out by the 1900s.

Richardson and Company owned Stonechester in the 1900s. It employed seven men in 1908 and four in 1910, raising household coal from the Main Coal, and work ceased in July 1910. The Main or Brockwell seam was abandoned on 4 March 1912. In the 1920s E. Richardson worked it again: in 1929 three men, two of them underground, were raising coking and steam coal from the Brockwell. The Ordnance Survey's 25-inch map of 1921 shows a small colliery there with two drifts, both served by the tramway. The site has since been reclaimed.

Geology

The Main Coal, also called the Brockwell seam.

Workings

Two drifts, linked by a tramway running between High and Low Stonechester.

Closure

Work ceased in July 1910 and the Main or Brockwell was abandoned on 4 March 1912; it was being worked again by three men in 1929.

What remains

The site has been reclaimed.

Recorded claims

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

• Stonechester employed four men in 1910, when work ceased in July. ¹
• The Main or Brockwell seam at Stonechester was abandoned on 4 March 1912. ^2,3
• In 1929 E. Richardson's Stonechester Colliery employed three men raising coking and steam coal from the Brockwell. ¹
• The 25-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1921 shows a small colliery at Stonechester with two drifts served by a tramway. ⁴
• Tramways linked drift mines between High and Low Stonechester and ran west to a coal working near Marsfield. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Stonechester Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Stonechester Colliery: catalogue of plans of abandoned mines — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21917863: Stonechester, Brockwell or Main, abandoned 1912 — British Geological Survey
4. (secondary) Stonechester Colliery — North East Heritage Library (Coals Archive)

Record created: 22 October 2026 · Last researched: 22 October 2026