Tin Mill Colliery

Overview

A colliery at Blackhill, beside the Tin Mill on the north side of the Consett iron works, also known as Blackhill, Consett or Mount Pleasant Colliery. Worked by the Consett Iron Company from the 1860s for coal for its own works, it raised manufacturing coal from the Brockwell, Busty and Three Quarter seams and employed over 300 men at its peak, closing in August 1910.

History

Tin Mill Colliery, also called Blackhill, Consett or Mount Pleasant Colliery, lay at Blackhill on the north side of the Consett iron works. Fatal accidents were recorded there from 1856, and in 1862 Jerry Phout was killed by a fall of stone, leaving a wife and two children. North of the main works stood the Tin Plate Mills of Richardson and Co., which the Consett Iron Company, formed in 1864, bought two years later together with a colliery much nearer the works than its own pits; tin plate making soon stopped, but the name Tin Mill clung to that part of the works.

The Durham Mining Museum records the Consett Iron Company as owner of Tin Mill Colliery from the 1860s. It was one of the company's ten collieries around Consett and Langley Park, listed as Blackhill, and raised manufacturing coal for the works from the Brockwell, Busty and Three Quarter seams, the coking seams that supplied most of the company's output; fireclay was raised from 1902. It employed 203 men in 1883, 234 in 1896 and 339 in 1902. An electric motor driven from the works was fitted to work three pumps in the Blackhill Colliery Drift, lifting 158 to 240 gallons of water a minute. By 1910 only 17 men were employed; on 6 August that year the hewer James Downey was killed under a fallen stone after knocking out props to stow, and the colliery closed that month, though it stayed on the lists, unworked, into the 1920s.

Geology

Durham coalfield, near the western outcrop: the Brockwell, Busty and Three Quarter seams, with fireclay.

Workings

Shafts and the Blackhill Colliery Drift, whose three pumps were driven by electric motor from the iron works.

Closure

Closed in August 1910; listed as not worked from 1915 to 1923.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Recorded claims

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

• The Consett Iron Company owned Tin Mill Colliery from the 1860s until it closed in August 1910. ¹
• Blackhill was one of the Consett Iron Company's ten collieries, and an electric motor was fitted to drive three pumps in the Blackhill Colliery Drift, lifting 158 to 240 gallons a minute. ²
• The colliery raised manufacturing coal from the Brockwell, Busty and Three Quarter seams, with fireclay from 1902. ¹
• It employed 203 men in 1883, 339 in 1902 and 17 in 1910. ¹
• The Consett Iron Company, incorporated in 1864, bought Richardson and Co.'s Tin Plate Mills two years after its formation, with a colliery near the works; the name Tin Mill stayed with that part of the works. ^2,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Tin Mill Colliery (also known as Blackhill Colliery, Consett Colliery, Mount Pleasant Colliery) — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Description of the Consett Iron Works, Part 2 — GENUKI
3. (secondary) Consett Iron Co — Grace's Guide

Record created: 5 October 2026 · Last researched: 5 October 2026