Willington Colliery

Overview

A west Durham coking colliery begun in 1840 by the Northern Coal Mining Company, whose whole capital of half a million pounds and nearly as much again went into Willington and its other royalties within a few years. Straker & Love took it on in the 1850s and worked it until 1932, raising coking and manufacturing coal with fireclay, plateclay and whinstone alongside. Three of its workers, two of them boys, were killed by a boiler explosion on the screens on New Year's Day week in 1867.

History

The Northern Coal Mining Company commenced operations in April 1838 with a capital of £500,000, leasing the Willington, Framwellgate Moor and other royalties; within a few years, the Durham Mining Museum records, the whole of that capital had been expended and an additional sum of nearly equal amount with it. The colliery itself dates from 1840. By the 1850s it was in the hands of Straker & Love, the west Durham partnership that also held Brancepeth, and it stayed with them until it closed in 1932. Two pits are named, the A and the B, with a separate working known as Sunny Brow catalogued under its own name in the abandonment plans and giving the village its name. Coking and manufacturing coal were the colliery's business, but the returns are unusual for the range of other things it raised: fireclay from the 1890s, and from 1905 plateclay and whinstone — igneous rock, quarried from the Whin Sill that cuts the district. Employment ran from 632 in 1883 to a peak of 686 in 1910, collapsed to 35 in 1915, recovered to the three hundreds through the 1920s, and the pit was closed on 11 June 1927 before working on again into the 1930s. On 2 January 1867 a boiler exploded at the surface and killed three of the men and boys working the screens (see Disasters, below). The colliery closed in 1932.

Geology

The colliery worked the Coal Measures of west Durham, taking the B, Ballarat, Brockwell, Harvey, Hutton, Jet, Seggar and Three Quarter seams over its life — a shallow, closely stacked group of thin coals, several of them named for the seatearth and clay bands between rather than for the coal itself. Seggar clay and plateclay were raised as products in their own right, and from 1905 the returns also record whinstone, the hard dark igneous rock of the Whin Sill, quarried alongside the coal and listed as igneous rock by 1923.

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

Workings

Two shafts, the A and the B, with the B still at work when the A was standing in the 1880s. The Sunny Brow workings are catalogued separately in the abandonment plans, as are Willington and Bowden Close together, and the plans were held variously by G. B. & T. E. Forster of Newcastle and by Strakers & Love at Brancepeth Colliery. Coking coal went to the colliery's own ovens; clay and whinstone were worked as byproducts of the same take.

Closure

The colliery was closed on 11 June 1927 and then worked on, with 306 people in 1929 and 286 in 1930, before closing in 1932; 51 were still on the books in 1935, presumably on salvage. Its abandonment plans, catalogued in 1928 and 1934, cover Willington, Willington and Bowden Close, and Sunny Brow separately.

What remains

No description of what survives on the colliery site has been found. Willington and Sunnybrow remain as villages south-west of Durham.

None identified in the sources consulted.

Redevelopment

None recorded in the sources consulted.

Nearby mines

• Witton Park Colliery — 4.5 km SW
• Roddymoor Colliery — 4.7 km NW
• Auckland Park Colliery — 6.4 km SE
• Littleburn Colliery — 7.8 km NE
• Chilton Colliery — 8.9 km SE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Willington Colliery Boiler Explosion, 1867
  2 January 1867 · Machinery · 3 fatalities
  A boiler exploded at Willington Colliery on 2 January 1867 and killed three of those working at the surface: George Farnaby, a fireman of eighteen, George Young, a screenman of seventeen, and George Webster, a screen boy of eleven. All three deaths were at the pit bank rather than underground.

Recorded claims

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

• The company commenced operations in April 1838 with a capital of £500,000, leasing the Willington, Framwellgate Moor and other royalties, and within a few years had expended the whole of that capital and an additional sum of nearly equal amount. ¹
• Straker & Love held the colliery from the 1850s until its closure in 1932. ¹
• Besides coking and manufacturing coal the colliery raised fireclay from the 1890s and, from 1905, plateclay and whinstone, returned as igneous rock by 1923. ¹
• Employment stood at 632 in 1883 and peaked at 686 in 1910, fell to 35 in 1915, and ran in the three hundreds through the 1920s. ¹
• Sunny Brow is catalogued as a separate named working in the abandonment plans, its parish given as 'probably Willington'. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Willington Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Catalogue of Plans of Abandoned Mines for Willington Colliery — Coal Authority catalogue, via the Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 3 September 2026 · Last researched: 4 September 2026