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  #41  
Old 07-06-2016, 10:54 AM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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Finally got to photograph the remains of Tarry Colliery and the lime kiln. They are uploaded into an album for anyone interested.
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  #42  
Old 07-06-2016, 01:29 PM
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By the way, any help with the metal thingy on two of the photographs gratefully received
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  #43  
Old 07-06-2016, 07:40 PM
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Fascinating series of photographs Janwhin. Metal thingy could be anything but perhaps a governor / bearing or shaft support of some sort for one of the stationary engines at the pit. Is it cast iron do you think?

Did we read that they had a horizontal steam winding engine there?
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  #44  
Old 07-06-2016, 08:10 PM
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Any ideas as to what the small conical heap is left of centre in this one Janwhin? is that on or near a shaft perhaps?


small heap
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  #45  
Old 07-06-2016, 09:08 PM
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Here's a restored colliery engine on a brick mount.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ste...d-7587121.html


Wiki model of a mill engine, little difference to the above I suppose.

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  #46  
Old 08-06-2016, 09:20 AM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coquet View Post
Any ideas as to what the small conical heap is left of centre in this one Janwhin? is that on or near a shaft perhaps?


small heap
I don't know for certain Coquet what that heap is ...but.....the fenced off area to the right of the photo encloses a pond. An overflow trench was dug out diagonally from the corner. The first part has a pipe but further down the trench is left open. I think it is possibly the excess soil from the excavation, but the farmer will know as he dug it. The metal thingy was dug out from that. I think that is probably cast iron, extremely heavy.
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  #47  
Old 08-06-2016, 09:28 AM
janwhin janwhin is offline
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Quote:
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Fascinating series of photographs Janwhin. Metal thingy could be anything but perhaps a governor / bearing or shaft support of some sort for one of the stationary engines at the pit. Is it cast iron do you think?

Did we read that they had a horizontal steam winding engine there?
Tarry/Eglingham was drum windlass/horse gin. Shipley Colliery seems to have had a winding engine with a drunk engineman.
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  #48  
Old 08-06-2016, 08:29 PM
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Any lumps of Scremerston coal lying about?
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  #49  
Old 18-04-2017, 11:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by janwhin View Post
Finally got to photograph the remains of Tarry Colliery and the lime kiln. They are uploaded into an album for anyone interested.
At Beamish at the weekend. Here's the 'Silksworth Sinking Engine' photographed from up the colliery heapstead. I think your engine mounts would be fit with a similar machine?

This one was built in 1868 for Silksworth Colliery, but only installed for the shaft sinking phase, but it was retained for dropping heavy machinery down the shaft, and as a backup winder. It is, according to the guide book, a unique survivor.

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  #50  
Old 18-04-2017, 11:26 AM
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There appears to be two engines, one on top of the walls, another sitting down between them.











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  #51  
Old 18-04-2017, 11:40 AM
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Different subject, but do we have anything like this, ruined or otherwise locally?

(I don't think anyone notices this thing when they visit Beamish)


It is a Shaft Cupola, built over intake ventilation shafts or over abandoned shafts, also for shafts retained for emergency egress. That particular one came from Medomsley near Consett.


You would think we would have had a few of those?


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  #52  
Old 18-04-2017, 11:51 AM
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One more (out of focus? ) mining related photo from their '1820s landscape' the Whim Gin.


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  #53  
Old 18-04-2017, 12:53 PM
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That's a great set of photographs, Coquet, but does your daughter ever get tired of providing the scale!

The engine mounts look promising and the gin is great. I assume we're missing some horses to turn the thing?
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  #54  
Old 18-04-2017, 07:03 PM
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Quote:
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That's a great set of photographs, Coquet, but does your daughter ever get tired of providing the scale!

The engine mounts look promising and the gin is great. I assume we're missing some horses to turn the thing?
Oh yes she is fed up with it!

Cornish plunger pump by Evans of Wolverhampton, with corresponding page from my copy of 'Mine Drainage' by Stephen Mitchell, 1899, showing a very similar Evans pump. [Daughter thinks I've lost my mind, the things I get excited about ]







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  #55  
Old 18-04-2017, 07:05 PM
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Quote:
The engine mounts look promising and the gin is great. I assume we're missing some horses to turn the thing?

Yes that Gin works and they do demonstrate it sometimes with one of the many Beamish horses.
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  #56  
Old 18-04-2017, 07:29 PM
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Since the last time I was there they've opened a 'Lamp Cabin' on the colliery site which is a display area for the history of miners' lamps. Fascinating collection, weird and wonderful.

This one is a lamp designed by Dr. Clanny and manufactured by a Newcastle company called 'Mountain'. Made about 1835. Never got very far past the experimental stage.

These two photos show the lamp in its normal operational condition on the left and after gas had entered on the right.

The design was like a gauze lamp, but a piece of wire through the top, above the flame, held the copper skirts or shields up. If gas entered the lamp the flame would grow and melt the wire, and the shields would drop down closing the lamp off.

The design was presented to a Select Committee on Coal Mines. They reported back: "The nicety and delicacy required in the management of the wire and apparatus...can scarcely be expected at the hands of the rude miner..."
Therefore condemed as too difficult a design for the miners, so never got anywhere.


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  #57  
Old 19-04-2017, 07:32 PM
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This must have been quite a sturdy piece of machinery given the head of water (back pressure) it had to raise on every delivery stroke, i.e several hundred feet of water in what could be anything from 3 to 6 inch delivery pipes. I assume cast iron delivery pipes with a set of valves were used so it would be expensive to install too. More recently multi stage centrifugal pumps were used and 5000 gallons per minute wasn't unusual (Whittle). (PS. My family think I've lost my mind too, there aren't too many left who have a knowledge and experience of this almost forgotten industrial history as most of it is left buried hundreds of feet under our feet or the sea!)
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  #58  
Old 05-10-2017, 01:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jumpy shore View Post
This must have been quite a sturdy piece of machinery given the head of water (back pressure) it had to raise on every delivery stroke, i.e several hundred feet of water in what could be anything from 3 to 6 inch delivery pipes. I assume cast iron delivery pipes with a set of valves were used so it would be expensive to install too. More recently multi stage centrifugal pumps were used and 5000 gallons per minute wasn't unusual (Whittle). (PS. My family think I've lost my mind too, there aren't too many left who have a knowledge and experience of this almost forgotten industrial history as most of it is left buried hundreds of feet under our feet or the sea!)
Here's a Anderson RH22 'Dosco'* or road heading machine, on the roadside somewhere in Scotland. (*Dosco was actually a competitor, but the name stuck for this type of machine)

There must be a load of these type machines scattered across the North East, but at depth! I'm sure they had two giant machines driving from Ellington to Amble that were still underground, abandoned years before, when the place finally closed.

Rather sad for me to look at this. That's what I was. A Dosco electrician. Worked on the modern versions. Tear in my eye. Never mind.

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  #59  
Old 05-10-2017, 01:25 PM
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Here's one for Alan.

These gate end boxes or panels (basic equipment switch) and the myriad of versions of them are something else that must still be 'down there' in there thousands.

This type switch was ok if well maintained but that 'wishbone' closing and opening affair on the door could be a real nightmare. I've seen me have to take a mel to these to get the door open. Not the done thing considering these are flameproof (explosion proof) enclosures with components manufactured to thousands of an inch tolerance.


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  #60  
Old 05-10-2017, 01:34 PM
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Ah...ye olde coal cutter. The AB Fifteen. I did show the daughter the trick of how to switch it on. I'm sure she is the only 14 year old in the UK that has the skills to switch a cutter on. You never know when such a skill might come in handy.


I was doubtful about the picks in the jib of this particular machine, tiny things they were. I assume 'made up' as perhaps they got the machine without picks? Not what we used at Whittle Colliery anyway.


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