Storey Lodge Colliery

Overview

A colliery near Cockfield on the Haggerleases branch, worked by the North Bitchburn Coal Company with up to 180 men until its seams were exhausted in 1904, and revived as a small licensed drift in the Busty seam from 1959 to 1974.

History

Storey Lodge Colliery lay near Cockfield, about thirteen and a half miles south-west of Durham, on the Haggerleases branch of the North Eastern Railway. Coal was already being worked there by a drift in the Yard seam when a boring was put down from the surface in 1833. Thompson and Garbutt owned the colliery in the 1860s, the trustees of T. Charlton and Company in the 1880s and the North Bitchburn Coal Company from the 1890s. It used three shafts in all, one of them a drift that was out of use by the 1890s, and a tramway led to the Harvey Drift south of the River Gaunless.

In 1894 the North Bitchburn company was working the Yard and Five Quarter seams, the latter four feet six inches thick, for coking and manufacturing coal, with an annual output of about 80,000 tons and 180 hands. The returns give 147 below ground in 1883 and 164 people in 1900. Thomas Heslop managed it from 1883 to 1905. Thomas Parkin, an onsetter, was crushed between a tub and the shaft side in 1890; earlier, in 1875, a brakesman, Benjamin Taylor, was caught in the machinery of an underground engine.

The Yard, Five Quarter and Brockwell seams were abandoned on 6 August 1904 with the coal exhausted, and the land stood vacant on the Ordnance Survey of the 1910s. The name came back in 1959, when A. Teasdale and Sons worked a small drift in the Busty seam with ten men, later as Storey Lodge Colliery Ltd. It employed twelve through the 1960s, raising household and industrial coal, and the licensed drift's plan is dated 1974.

Geology

The Yard, Five Quarter (about four and a half feet) and Brockwell seams, with the Harvey; the later drift worked the Busty.

Workings

Three shafts, one a drift out of use by the 1890s, and a tramway to the Harvey Drift; a licensed drift in the Busty from 1959.

Closure

The Yard, Five Quarter and Brockwell seams were abandoned on 6 August 1904, the coal exhausted; the licensed drift's plan is dated 1974.

What remains

The site has been reclaimed; its boundary survives as the grounds of a property.

Related mines

• Randolph Colliery, Evenwood — Both were worked by the North Bitchburn Coal Company in Evenwood township.

Recorded claims

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

• A boring was put down at Storey Lodge in 1833 near a drift already working the Yard seam. ¹
• In 1894 the North Bitchburn Coal Company worked the Yard and Five Quarter seams at Storey Lodge for about 80,000 tons a year with 180 hands. ¹
• The Yard, Five Quarter and Brockwell seams at Storey Lodge were abandoned on 6 August 1904, the coal exhausted. ^1,2,3
• Storey Lodge Colliery stood on the Haggerleases branch and used three shafts, one of them a drift. ⁴
• A licensed drift at Storey Lodge worked the Busty seam with ten to twelve men from 1959; its plan is dated 1974. ^1,5

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Storey Lodge Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Storey Lodge Colliery: catalogue of plans of abandoned mines — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21910590: Storey Lodge, Yard, 1904 — British Geological Survey
4. (secondary) Storey Lodge Colliery — North East Heritage Library (Coals Archive)
5. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21895701: Storey Lodge Drift (licensed mine), Busty, 1974 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 23 October 2026 · Last researched: 23 October 2026