Hauxley Colliery pumping station.
 

I notice this has recently been removed. I never found out why it was necessary to pump all those years. Since pumping stopped there does not seem to have been any adverse affect on the surface.

I'm not sure why they pumped it for so long either. Perhaps there was an agricultural user with a borehole nearby and they were obliged to prevent salt contamination of the water table? That would be a bit extravagant though, probably be cheaper to pay his mains water bill!

Hauxley pumps were used to pump the water out of the workings to keep the opencast sites dry. I don't think they have pumped anything since Togston site finished in 1985.

I can remember water gushing into the sea from the beach outlet long after 1985 upto at least 2008.Someone out there will have the answer to why the pumping continued.

I have spoken to an engineer directly involved. The pump was originally put in as Northern Light stated, to keep the opencast dry. It was sunk just behind the pit shaft down to the roadways below. Initially, when the pump was fitted, the water did not go down and my engineer friend looked into it and pointed out that actually about 110 million gallons were down there! as it was drawing water from not just Radcliffe but Togston, Broomhill and across beyond Red Row. They therefore had to install a much larger pump. I presume that when the opencast finished at Maidens Hall a couple of years ago UK Coal decided it was no longer necessary.
Hope his sheds some light on the subject, and makes sense, considering the earlier threads on inter-connection between the various pits.

Hauxley pumping station.
 

I too can remember pumping at least within the last 3 to 4 years and was also once told the reason for pumping was to keep the water down in the opencast workings. I wonder whether the whole exercise was effective or not. My reasoning is that the depth of the Hauxley shaft was 500 feet and the Brockwell, the seam which generated most of the water, was another 200feet below shaft bottom level. This would , I imagine, to be far below that which the opencast could reach, also it is hard to think that the workings as far away as Maidenshall, about 5 miles or more would be threatened. Coquet, your reference to salt water contamination suggests the Hauxley water was sea water. It was pure fresh water which was prefered by the ponies for drinking as opposed to that on offer at the stables. If it had been salt water we would have had much to worry about.

Coal Mine Ochre
 

You're right about the salt in undersea colliery mine water now you mention it, I had a few swigs of Ellington mine-water over the years and it's not exactly "Highland Spring" but it's not particularly salty either.
What else is in it is another question. It does pick up other minerals on its travels in particular iron. Hence the red staining at the Shilbottle/Whittle water management area and the rocks on the foreshore at the Hauxley outflow. I also remember in damp areas in old workings crystals would grow - not sodium chloride salt crystals but some other salt - they were long needle like crystals I remember.

That Iron oxide AKA "Ochre" could build up in pipes, channels and standages sometimes feet deep. If you got your hands in it they would be stained orange for a few days. Potent stuff.

Hauxley pumps were very effective at keeping Radcliffe and Togston sites dry. They also kept East Chevington dry. I can't see that they would have had any effect on Maidens Hall though. Apparently when the pumps were first installed the water level in the old shaft was about 60 feet from the surface. Two pumps were installed capable of pumping 7 million gallons per day. Once the water level was dropped to the required level one pump could maintain that level and the other pump was just there as a standby. The pumps were switched off during the salmon season. Can't think of any reason that they would be needed after East Chevington site finished, unless it was to allow the water table to restore to its natural level in a controlled manner.

Hauxley pumping station.
 

That seems to be a good explanation and I bow to your opencast knowledge on the subject. As the workings were kept dry it must have been directly related to the operation of the pumps at Hauxley. As you say there didn't seem to be a reason to keep pumping after East Chevington which must have been over 20 years ago. No doubt it served some purpose though.

Just out of interest Northern Light, what were the thinnest seams worked on the sites you worked at? I know they can work thin seams but not sure if the went for them around here as they had plenty of richer pickings.

Generally it was 6" or over that was worked. However West Chevington had a washing plant, so anything below 6" was put through that. I'm wondering whether Hauxley pumps may have had an influence on Ellington Colliery. I believe they were working North of Causey Park Dyke, but I don't know at what depth or what seams they were in.

Ellington Colliery did intend working the coal off Amble/Hauxley and did drive roadways through the Causey Park Dyke, (I think they went through the Acklington Dyke as well as they were quite close together out there).

We were told that to the north of the Dyke the coal rank increased to such an extent that it became unsuitable for the Alcan power station, the main customer. This seems an unlikely reason as it had all been sampled by offshore drilling in the 70s and they were well aware of the quality. Whatever the reason the drive for the Amble coal was abandoned in the early 90s I believe, so a couple of roadways made it through, but no production units were installed.


Those roadways were in the K seam, AKA the 'Brass Thill' which I believe splits in the Broomhill area into the Top (or Princess) and the Main (or Duke) seams (K1 and K2).

Seams at Ellington were worked to the safety limit of 60 meters below the sea bed. This would apply to the Yard or G seam ('Albert' in the Broomhill Area,) and the F seam ('Radcliffe' seam in the Broomhill area)


just out of interest the two dykes are shown here, if you extrapolate them out into the bay to a point where they come together, this is roughly where the Ellington drivages passed through them. ('N' numbers are boreholes, dashed lines are faults, the dotted line is the outcrop of the overlying Permian rocks)

If my memory serves me right the seams you mention are all good quality coal, and therefore were probably to good for power station fuel.

Hauxley and Ellington.
 

There was no connection made by Ellington into Hauxley as they were probably working at different levels and also , as has been previously stated, Hauxley was full of water so it was somewhere to avoid. Using some figures available to me on the pumping capacity when the pit was going they work out at 6.5 million gallons per day or 45.5 million gallons per week.
This does not include the water which ran to Newburgh and was pumped from there. Figures like this indicate quite a water problem.

Yes I should have said they would never knowingly create a connection between old Hauxley workings and Ellington, as it would have been curtains for Ellington, and probably the biggest mining disaster in British history!

My information is that Broomhill workings(linked into Hauxley) extended south west past Red Row towards the Woodside and Maidens Hall areas and therefore the opencasting which finished recently was kept dry in part by the Hauxley pumping.

As another interesting aside, directed at Northern Light!, do you recall the brick wall exposed in the Chevington Drift workings by the opencast? It was there for a reason ie to keep water out of the drift. Any truth in the rumour at the time? Still, we have a very nice lake at Druridge now I suppose..........

It would be great to see pictures of uncovered local mine workings. Wonder if anyone has any?

Hauxley pumping station
 

Great comments posted on this subject. I worked for Dereck Crouch at the Radcliffe site and had the honour of changing the pumps out two times both in the winter. I think at the change out times the Hauxley Pump Station was the coldest and miserable place I have ever been. We would attach a safety collar at the top of the discharge pipe then lift off connection to the pump. once a lifting plate was fitted to the top of the pipe stem we would lift out one section at a time. The bottom section of pipe were always covered with that orange oxide and corroded.

Little Wonder Coal Seam
 

While working at the Radcliffe site every couple of weeks we would have to dig through the Whinsill. It was tough on all of our equipment, I cannot remember now which dragline took the brunt of the work; DG1 DG2 or the Marion. There was a coal seam running up the Broomhill Road called the Little Wonder which was the best heating coal with no ash ever. I would put a small lump on my mothers fire and within ten minute her hot water tank would be boiling and bubbling to the point we would have to run off the hot water.

Did the open cast sell the whinstone or was it just waste?

I can remember as the district electrician in a couple of main drivages at Whittle we passed through a winstone dyke. When we reached it all the drilling equipment was changed out to hard rock gear. Labourious slow and heavy work for the 'winnings' men. I bet they were glad to see the coal and shales come back in at the other side.