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  #1  
Old 09-06-2014, 07:57 PM
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Coquet Coquet is offline
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Default Radcliffe Colliery

Here is a mid Victorian engraving of Radcliffe Colliery. From an original colliery invoice. I wondered how stylised this is, after seeing the unlikely winding equipment on the left. But....after investigating this I think the structure on the left is a counterbalance affair to the main winding equipment. this was generally some heavy chain attached to a winding rope connecting to the main winding drum. this 'weight chain' had its own shaft which it dropped down during winding operations. I have a picture of Wearmouth Colliery with the same type of affair which was built in 1848 - close enough to the date of Radcliffe to be using similar equipment?
Interesting anyway. Warkworth Castle also on the right?








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Old 09-06-2014, 08:01 PM
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Compare that with Wearmouth, counterbalance on the left again:

you can actually see chain near ground level attached to the winding rope.
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Old 09-06-2014, 08:08 PM
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On that Radcliffe engraving there appears to be a horse gin?? What's that all about? Something salvaged from Percy Street Colliery?
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Old 09-06-2014, 09:50 PM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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I like the man on the right with his pick and his dog, strolling to his shift as part of some rural idyll.
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Old 09-06-2014, 09:58 PM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coquet View Post
On that Radcliffe engraving there appears to be a horse gin?? What's that all about? Something salvaged from Percy Street Colliery?
Funny you should say that. I've come across a death at Eshott Colliery in 1864 which describes how the coals are brought to bank by a one horse gin with two ropes, north and south, the one rope ascending as the other is going down. The ropes were 4 1/2 inches. The men used the ropes to get to the surface.
I'll be sending you this one and a Debdon fatality for the mining deaths.
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Old 10-06-2014, 08:38 AM
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They look a potentially lethal mode of transport that's for sure:

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Old 10-06-2014, 08:54 AM
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That one at Radcliffe could be a leftover from the shaft sinking, or just there for emergency use if the steam engine broke down with men underground.
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Old 23-10-2014, 10:39 AM
geoffglass geoffglass is offline
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Default Radcliffe

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coquet View Post
On that Radcliffe engraving there appears to be a horse gin?? What's that all about? Something salvaged from Percy Street Colliery?
Just joined group and noticed a
Percy Street Pit mentioned
What /where etc.
I was born and lived in Amble
1945-1966 and never heard this mentioned
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Old 23-10-2014, 06:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by geoffglass View Post
Just joined group and noticed a
Percy Street Pit mentioned
What /where etc.
I was born and lived in Amble
1945-1966 and never heard this mentioned
The Percy Street workings had been forgotten (just about) by 1876, even though they were being used for a water supply at that time. So we are talking early here, probably 18th century.

Post 12 and 19 in this thread on Amble's early water supply refer to the workings. Coal was extracted for use at the Links salt works.
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Old 24-10-2014, 10:35 AM
geoffglass geoffglass is offline
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Default Percy street pit

Thanks Coquet
Lived in 1a Percy street for a few years all this banter brings back wonderful memories
We lived above the Bradford bros
First house over the railway line
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Old 19-05-2017, 10:18 AM
jumpy shore jumpy shore is offline
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In a recent family conversation about my grandparents and great grandparents homes in Cross Row West and Long Row North respectively I remembered playing in the gardens near the 'Tute and in the 'square'. I seem to remember an old shaft / drift that was fenced off and had a steel gate over it in the square (in red on the attached map) Am I mistaken? If not, does anyone else remember it?
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Old 19-05-2017, 11:14 AM
Alan J. Alan J. is offline
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There was a drift in the area bordered by Centre Row and Leslie Row this was part of Broomhill Colliery and operated until the early 50's.
As far as I remember the area you have marked was used by Albert and Jimmy Douglas to keep poultry and pigs they also had a couple of ponies with flat carts and did a bit of local haulage in their spare time, they both worked at Hauxley.
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Old 24-05-2017, 05:31 PM
jumpy shore jumpy shore is offline
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Thanks Alan, thats what I must be thinking of. Its probably 50 years ago so my was memory as 7 year old! I remember the pigs and chickens and chasing them, a more vivid memory is what seemed to be hundreds rolls of Lino in the store!
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Old 07-06-2017, 08:34 AM
Digvul Digvul is offline
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I lived in Leslie Row in the 1950s and early sixties. We called that square the "tettie lots" which means potato allotments. I don't remember any potatoes being grown in that spot but have fond memories of the ponies kept there and the flat carts which were hired to carry large items from place to place.

I just about remember the drift mine in operation. We were actually allowed into the building and sometimes walked a short way down the sloping roadway into the drift itself. (No health and safety those days.) I remember I was horrified by the dank smell of the air and felt I was being allowed a quick glimpse of the horrendous atmosphere in which my father and other pitmen were obliged to work. My fondest memory of the drift, however, is of watching the pit ponies arriving from the stables, presumably situated in Stable Row. The favourite animal was called Anchor.
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