Description
Map showing the names and locations of around 600 North East England collieries in the historic counties of Northumberland and Durham. The region’s last coal mine closed in 2005 but coal mining was for centuries a major part of the region’s history, culture and scenery. The main map does not claim to feature every mine that once existed in the region but most, if not all of the major collieries that still existed in the twentieth century are featured along with many smaller ones. The map distinguishes between those mines that closed before 1947 (the year of nationalisation) and those that closed from 1947 to 2005. Two smaller additional inset maps show mines in the outlying coalfields of Scremerston and Tynedale. Another inset map shows some of the early wooden colliery wagonways of the Tyne and Wear region that operated in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Two further inset maps highlight the most tragic colliery disasters and the dates of the most recently closed mines of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
