West Stanley Colliery

Overview

The Burns Pit — a Durham colliery working four seams through four shafts, and the scene in February 1909 of one of the worst disasters in British mining, when a coal-dust explosion killed some 167 men and boys and a deputy sang his way out with twenty-six of them.

History

West Stanley Colliery opened in 1832 and worked about seventy acres through four shafts, reaching several seams. It was owned by the Burn family, which is why it was known locally as the Burns Pit. It killed thirteen men in an explosion in April 1882, when unsafe lamps ignited firedamp released by a roof fall in the Busty seam. Twenty-seven years later, on the afternoon of 16 February 1909, a coal-dust explosion tore through four seams at once and killed some 167 men and boys — one of the worst mining disasters Britain has had. The colliery worked on until 1936.

Geology

The Durham coalfield's bedded Carboniferous seams were worked here at four levels — the Tilley, Towneley, Busty and Brockwell — and it was that vertical stacking that made 1909 so bad: an explosion beginning in one seam reached all four. Coal dust rather than gas was the agent. Dry dust raised into the air by a first ignition burns as it goes, and will carry an explosion the length of a mine that firedamp alone would never reach.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Four shafts serving four worked seams — Tilley, Towneley, Busty and Brockwell — across a take of roughly seventy acres.

Closure

West Stanley closed in 1936. The Coal Authority holds a three-sheet abandonment plan for the colliery dated 1903, covering earlier workings.

What remains

The colliery site has been cleared and built over; the disaster is what remains publicly visible, through the memorials in the town.

Nothing of the colliery. Three memorials to the 1909 disaster stand in Stanley: an ornate pedestal and urn unveiled in 1913, a 1995 memorial built around a colliery winding wheel, and a 2005 headstone marking the mass graves.

Redevelopment

The site is absorbed into the town of Stanley.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Disasters & major incidents

• West Stanley Colliery explosion, 1909
  16 February 1909 · Explosion · 167 fatalities
  A coal-dust explosion at West Stanley Colliery — the Burns Pit — on the afternoon of 16 February 1909 killed some 167 men and boys across four seams, among them children of thirteen and fourteen. Around thirty came out alive, twenty-six of them led out by a deputy who kept them together in the dark.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery opened in 1832 and closed in 1936, working roughly seventy acres through four shafts. ¹
• An explosion on 19 April 1882 killed thirteen men, caused by unsafe lamps igniting firedamp released by a roof fall in the Busty seam. ¹
• A coal-dust explosion on 16 February 1909 killed some 167 men and boys across four seams — one of the worst mining disasters in British history. ^2,3
• A three-sheet Coal Authority abandonment plan for West Stanley is dated 1903. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) West Stanley Pit disasters — Wikipedia
2. (primary) West Stanley Colliery Explosion, 1909 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (secondary) Coal Mining in Stanley — Stanley Town Council
4. (primary) Mine plan D1534: West Stanley (3 sheets) — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans catalogue

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026