Stopping

A wall built across a roadway to stop the air passing along it, so that the ventilating current is turned further into the workings or an old road is sealed off.

Historical usage

The 1849 glossary of the Northumberland and Durham coal trade defines a stopping as a wall built in any excavation for the purpose of conducting air further into the mine, and gives the builder's rules of the day: where a stopping was to be permanent it was built of brick or stone, with the windward side plastered carefully with lime; the best and cheapest were built of the stone that fell from the roof, and these should be not less than four feet thick, against nine inches for brick. Stone was held superior to brick for the support it gave the roof, and all were the better for being stowed at the back. A stopping that was not meant to last was put up with common brattice, plastered at the joints, or with brattice cloth. The modern coalfield glossary describes the same thing in later materials: a brick, breeze-block or plaster wall which seals off old roadways and redirects the ventilation air flow.

How it worked

Ventilation is a circuit, and a stopping is one of the things that forces it. Fresh air from the downcast would short-circuit straight to the upcast through the first cross-cut it met unless each opening between a pair of headways was stopped as the next was holed, so the air was driven to the furthest face before it could turn back along the return. A door is a stopping that men and tubs can pass; a scale of air was a portion allowed to escape through a door or stopping on purpose, to ventilate a rolley-way. Where a road was finished with, a permanent stopping closed it and the air it had taken was recovered for the working places.

Why it was used

Without stoppings there is no way to direct a current of air through a mine: the air takes the shortest path and the faces beyond it fill with firedamp and blackdamp. Sealing finished roads also keeps the quantity of air in the live workings up and keeps the old roads from being travelled.

Risks & limitations

The 1849 glossary was blunt about leakage: at the best stoppings air often escapes, and holing too many stentings between headways not only added to the expense but increased the liability to loss of air, because every new opening meant another stopping. A brattice stopping was a temporary expedient, and a stopping that leaked or had been left out of a long-finished road was one of the ways gas gathered where no one expected it.

Regional variation

Stopping is the word in every British coalfield. In the North East a sheth stopping was one set in coursing the air, and the glossaries of the 1840s record the Durham spelling and prices.

Related terminology

Bad Air, Brattice, Downcast Shaft and Upcast Shaft, Firedamp, Furnace Ventilation, Goaf, Return Airway

Mines associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 33 linked records — the term page is not an index.

• Ecton Copper Mines — Staffordshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s current condition: “…robots as part of the EU-funded UNEXMIN project, in each case stopping at a blockage. A multi-year conservation project on the mine's…”
• Esgair Hir and Esgair Fraith Mines — Powys (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…the site from 1703 to 1708, raising around 2,000 tons of ore before stopping. After long fallow periods and lesser attempts in 1760 and 1788,…”
• Minnie Pit — Staffordshire (well documented example)
  Named twice in this record, first in the history: “…the seam was worked in panels with 25-yard barriers and preparatory stoppings ready to seal each one against heating, 405 people were employed…”
• Neston Colliery — Cheshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…but justified it as managing Ness Colliery's own ventilation and stopping Cottingham's men from damaging the canal. Cottingham sued for…”
• Poynton Collieries — Cheshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s summary: “…about 250 men were made redundant; within a fortnight of the pumps stopping, water stood a few feet below the top of the Park Pit shafts.”

Disasters associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 69 linked records, most direct relationship first.

• Abram Colliery explosion, 1881 (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the aftermath: “…air crossings on the south-west and north-east jig brows and brick stoppings in front of dirt stoppings; found 'great laxity of discipline in…”
• Annesley Colliery fire and afterdamp (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “…to reach and remove the seat of a fire that had been sealed behind a stopping since May. Some were killed going back in after the others.”
• Barnsley Main Colliery explosions, 1942 (contextual relationship)
  Named 3 times in this record, first in the summary: “…off, a far larger explosion killed twelve of the men building the stoppings and injured twenty-eight.”
• Bentley Colliery manrider derailment, 1978 (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the cause: “…while the locomotive and first carriage ran a further 67 feet before stopping.”
• Bersham Colliery explosion (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the rescue and recovery: “…facing the shaft, blown towards it by the blast. Further on both stoppings and the air crossing were down. At the old longwall working they…”

Sources

1. (primary) Glossary of Mining and Geordie Words — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Mining Terms (S): glossary of the Northumberland and Durham coal trade, 1849 — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Pit Terminology — Healey Hero

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026