Benwell's Lost Coal Mines

A Walking TrailSketch plan: St. James' Church to Paradise Compare: This area in 1899

Route description: The walk is on pavements but involves climbing back up a steep hill

This Walking Trail was produced by St James' Heritage & Environment Group as part of its Men's Livesproject

Thanks to David Kidd for devising and illustrating the walk and to the Mining Institute for providingimages

© St James' Heritage & Environment Group 2013St James' Heritage & Environment Group, c/o 74 Adelaide Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 9JNemail: stjamesbenwell@gmail.com web address: http://stjameschurchnewcastle.wordpress.com/

Introduction

The walk follows the route of the waggonwaywhich carried coal from the Edward,Charlotte, and Beaumont pits to the staitheson the riverbank where it was loaded intokeels to be taken to colliers waiting atShields. This map shows the waggonway asit was in 1809 when it had iron rails and aself-acting incline which used full waggonsgoing down to the river to pull emptywaggons back up the hill to the pits.

The walk starts on Benwell Lane at St James’Church. Condercum road which runs northfrom here was originally called Charlotte PitLane. It led to Charlotte Pit sunk in 1766.This was on the site now occupied bythe counci l depot. Benwell Lane crossedthe waggonway from Charlotte Pit on abridge and the waggonway then ran souththrough St James’ graveyard.

Walk south down Atkinson Road from thetraffic lights where it meets CondercumRoad, Benwell Lane and Adelaide Terrace(pictured here about 1902). Follow AtkinsonRoad down the hill by the side of the churchto the next traffic lights. The waggonwaywas modernised by John Buddle in 1809and the road is named after his nephewRobert Atkinson. Robert inherited BenwellColliery from John Buddle in 1843. JohnBuddle and Robert Atkinson are both buriedin St James' graveyard at Benwell.

At the traffic lights, cross over ArmstrongRoad and continue down Atkinson Road.The road now follows the line of thewaggonway down to the bottom of the hill.The waggonway was out of use by 1835when Benwell Colliery stopped supplyingcoal to the London market and insteadsupplied house coal to Newcastle.

The Beaumont shaft of Benwell Collierywas on the right at the bottom of the hill.The site is shown on this extract from the1937 Ordnance Survey map. Today theroad south of Egerton Street curves aroundin an S-bend before it reaches ScotswoodRoad, whereas it previously ran in astraight line south crossing ScotswoodRoad to reach Paradise.

Beaumont Pit was abandoned in 1848 andthe old shaft then known as the ParadisePit was the cause of the Montagu Pitdisaster in 1925 which cost the lives of 38men and boys when miners at the MontaguView Pit broke into the old flooded workingsin the Brockwell Seam. The plans of theold Beaumont Pit were in the BenwellColliery offices but the owners of theMontagu Pit did not check them when theyplanned to extend the View Pit workings.This picture shows the Montagu Disastermemorial in Elswick Cemetery.

Now return to St James’ Church to see thegrave of John Buddle and Robert Atkinsonnear the side entrance to the church.Buddle was buried in the High Main seamwhich is near the surface here. Buddle'ssister Ann, his lifelong companion, is alsoburied here.

Drawing from Buddle’s papers showing cross-section ofstrata at Benwell with the High Main coal seamoutcropping near St James’ Church

In this drawing the vertical line at the right hand side cuts throughthe strata below the Edward pit on the surface and the horizontallines represent the coal seams and the high tide level of the RiverTyne.

In order, from the surface they are:-

High Main Coal Seam

Metal Coal Seam

High Tide Level of River Tyne

Low Main Coal Seam

Beaumont Coal Seam

Coal Seams at Benwell

The first coal to be mined at Benwell camefrom the High Main Seam. This six footthick seam of good coal was worked by theRomans, but by the 17th century it wasexhausted and miners found the Low Mainor Benwell Main Seam near the river. In the17th century the deeper Beaumont Seam,said to be named after its discoverer, wasmined using "fire engines" (early steamengines) to pump water from workingsdeep under the river. Benwell coal madeNewcastle rich at the time of the Civil Warand the first railways in the world, woodenwaggonways carrying coal from the pits tothe river, were built here. By the beginningof the 19th century the most productivemines in the North were at places likeWallsend nearer the coast but it was theearly mining at Benwell that made thempossible. At Wallsend the High Main Seamis hundreds of feet below ground but JohnBuddle, the mining engineer andpioneering geologist who is buried at StJames’ Church, studied the coal seams atBenwell and used what he learned tounderstand the geology of the coalfield andlay the foundations of the great coalindustry of the North East.

A coal seam exposed by builders in the PendowerEstate in September 2013.

Coal mining finished in Benwell almost 80years ago but there is still coal underyour feet.