2.1 - Woodhorn Colliery (grid ref. NZ 2890 8840), lies near Ashington, on the Northumberland coalfield. This coalfield occupies southeast Northumberland,
its western boundary running from the coast near Warkworth, southwest to the Tyne near Ovingham and the Derwent near Shotley Bridge. To the south the coal
seams continue uninterrupted into the Durham coalfield; to the east, they continue beneath the North Sea, the practical limit of the coal field being the
limit of economic working from onshore collieries. The Coal Measures consist of alternating sandstones, shales, clays and coal seams, dipping gently overall
to the southeast; a total of 24 coal seams have been worked (Tuck 1993, 9). Geological mapping (1", sheet 10; surveyed 1882, resurveyed 1924-6, published 1934,
and reprinted 1966) indicates that the colliery site is covered by Boulder Clay drift; Upper Coal Measures were exposed to the northeast and southwest,
but no outcropping coal seams were mapped in the immediate area.
2.2 - Early coal mining in the region worked shallow seams on the hills around ports and estuaries, avoiding most drainage and transport problems. From the
17th century, waggonways were used to extend the workable coalfield to other areas where downhill access to a harbour could be created. In the later 18th
century emphasis shifted to deep long-lived collieries, necessitating the use of steam pumping and winding engines (Gould and Cranstone 1992). The increase in
the demand for coal in the 19th century as a result of industrial growth at home and expansion of overseas markets forced further developments in equipment
and working practice, including the invention and introduction of the mechanical ventilating fan, the vertical winding engine and later the horizontal engine,
the use of gunpowder for coal getting and complex screens for the sorting of coal.
The timing of the introduction of these developments varied from colliery to
colliery, but by the end of the period collieries of the Northeast region had a largely standard layout: two or more shafts (a second shaft to provide an
escape route following an accident in the first was a legal requirement following the accident at Hartley Colliery in 1862), winders for the shafts, fan house(s)
, screens, boilers, large pond(s) to supply the boilers, a magazine, stables for the pit ponies (whose numbers grew following 1840 Coal Mines Act which banned
the employment underground of females and children younger than ten), various workshops, and a large spoil tip. During the second half of the 19th century an
integrated system of railways and sidings was also added to this layout, completing the typical Northeast colliery. Woodhorn Colliery, although not established
until 1894, quickly attained this common regional composition.
Further developments in the 20th century saw the introduction of compressed air, electricity,
underground mechanisation, underground haulage and the building of pithead baths, especially following the Mines Industry Act of 1926.
Coal production in the county hit its peak in 1913 when 227,000 miners were employed. Following this date the industry went into decline, with brief upturns
during wartime and following nationalisation in 1947 followed by renewed closures. Woodhorn closed in 1986, and by the late 1990s the only working colliery in
the coalfield was, and is, at Ellington.
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