Lukes pond
 

As a young child i can remember a pond at the base of newburgh pit heap that my granfather told me someone called luke had drowned in was this a tale he told me . Has anybody else heared the tale .as a young child he would take my brother & i to the top of the shaft & we would drop stones down health & safety would have a field day .we used to walk the old disused railway line from radcliffe to newburgh to the beach o happy days if only i could turn the clock back

not sure about which pond you mean?what i called the pond was the water at the bottom of the hill between newburgh and bondicarr farm,,the burn flowed into it from the west and underground onto the beach...the only other thing i can think of is there was reservoir by the pit but i never heard of anyone drowning there.

Sad day....me and Brian served in the army in 70s,both went to canada on postings and he ended up staying there.

I remember Old Luke's Pond. It was a small pond in the corner of a field near the road. My parents told me it was so called because Old Luke "did away with himself" there. This was before my time. I've marked the position of the pond on this old sketch map. I may not have it exactly right but it was certainly somewhere in that vicinity. Hope the scale of the map is large enough. http://http://www.coquetandcoast.co....php?albumid=10

Sorry, failed to post picture. I'll try again.
http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/ambl...0&pictureid=90

Regarding the horse and the mine workings - from Bedlingtonshire Revisited, June 2005 - © Sixth Townships Community History Group

Those Were The Days

Horse Buried Alive

A butcher from Amble, Adam Goodfellow, travelling with his horse and cart along a track through the fields at High Coldrife Farm, near Broomhill, was shocked when the horse began to sink in the ground during a Friday evening in January 1931. Adam who was accompanied by a boy, Andrew Moffatt sprang into action to try and save the animal with help of a housekeeper, Maud Taylor, who had seen the incident. The cart was pulled clear, but unfortunately the horse, which was struggling violently, sank deeper. Frantic efforts continued to try and haul the horse out but these all failed. An attempt was made to get the animal from underneath. Three miners who were working in a seam 30 feet below the ground, saw the horse, and one of them Mr. W. Summers, walked round to get into a good position to free it. He himself was cut off by a fall of stone and earth, and had to be hauled out to the surface by means of ropes and ladders. The other two miners who made the attempt were, Mr. J. T. Nesbit and Mr. W. Wade. The workers on the surface were unable to make headway owing to the continual crumbling of earth which kept falling back and making their work dangerous. The horse slipped deeper and deeper into the main workings and earth and coal continued to fall onto the animal until it totally disappeared from sight. Although there was extreme danger, the miners kept up their efforts to save the horse’s life until the early hours of Saturday morning. About 3. 00 am in the morning they came to the conclusion that the horse was dead, but kept toiling on until they reached the animal’s carcase. The fall where the tragedy took place, was about one mile from Broomhill Colliery and riddled with previous pitfalls.

Well that is quite astonishing! Nice find by the way. [And nice drawing Digvul]

Digvul
I have it confirmed by someone who lived nearby that your location of Luke's pond is certainly correct.

Another aside, I 've come across the newspaper report for the incident with the butcher's cart:
Hatlepool Mail, 24 January 1931:
"A horse was plunged 30 feet into pit workings when a portion of the roadway suddenly caved in at High Coldrife, near Broomhill Colliery, yesterday afternoon.
Parties of miners worked for hours with pulleys in an effort to haul the animal to the surface, but at a late hour last night it was still trapped underground.
The horse was being led by Adam Goodfellow, in the employ of Mr James Rowell, butcher, of Amble, on his rounds when suddenly it seemed to shy and its hindquarters began to disappear into the ground.
Goodfellow saw that a hole about 3ft in diameter had appeared in the roadway.
He immediately unharnessed the horse so as to pull it out, but as soon as it was unharnessed the horse fell further down and disappeared out of sight.
The cart was pulled back or it would have followed, as the hole became larger.
The hole was 30 feet deep, and a remarkable feature is that two men working down the pit got past the horse and climbed towards the surface.
One was able to get out at the top, but the other was not so successful, and he had to be pulled to the surface by ropes."