Easington Colliery
Landmark Peterlee County Durham

Easington Colliery

Landmark In Peterlee, County Durham

A town with a nature reserve, memorial garden, cemetry and a reconstructed miners pit cage, celebrating the times of mining in Easington Colliery.

I first knew of Easington Colliery due it being famous for Billy Elliot and local people are proud of that. A photograph from the area also features on the album cover of the Who's 'Who's Next' from 1971. A risque one at the time!

I got to know the area due to the Easington Colliery Local Nature Reserve which was the heart of the mining back in the day. From the car park, some paths lead you nicely onto the Durham Heritage Coastal path. There is a pleasant walk if you take the path under the railway bridge along a path and take a left turn down steps and pass a WW2 Pill Box. This leads to the beach which is mainly attractive stones of all shapes and sizes. you will see signs of the Victorian industries from this area such as bricks, iron deposits, and sea glass.

Mining heritage is well known in the area, and in its heyday, some tunnels went 4 miles out to sea. There are now reminders of this past with a miners' pit cage (reconstructed) where there was a mine shaft. The walk up to the cage has interesting information written on plaques that represent the miners' tokens or tallies. The cage can be seen for quite a few miles as it commands a prominent position.

A splendid Memorial Garden is situated by the B1238 at the junction of Crawlaw Ave and Office Street before the entrance to the road to the car park down to the nature reserve. It commemorates those that worked at the colliery from 1899 to 1993.

The colliery was the last deep mine to close in 1993. The enclosed garden has a pithead wheel laid horizontally supported by wooden timbers. Crushed coals lie between the spokes. The metal work is particularly pleasing and between the two metal benches you can view the pit cage on the hill.

The site is known for a tragedy where 83 men died in 1951. The disaster is known as 'The Duck Bill Flare'. Duck Bill being the seam where the miners were working. There was an explosion that was likely to have been from a build-up of a methane type gas (Firedamp).

Two miners had not taken their 'flamed' lamps down with them (It was more to carry) and the lamps would have warned them of the noxious gases. The machinery could have been a trigger for the explosion as the teeth were purportedly blunt and could have caused sparks. The explosion was at a time when there were 2 shifts of miners down the pit.

The eloquent Easington Colliery Cemetery (Crawlaw Road, SR8 3NB} has a memorial to the 83.

72 of the men are buried there. Their ages ranged from teenagers to men in their late sixties. There are coal picks, lamps, cutting equipment, and a coal tub positioned around the memorial.

Take a walk along Memorial Avenue at the Welfare Park where 83 trees were planted the year after the disaster in 1952. appropriately named The Avenue of Remembrance.

The first one was planted by the youngest lad at the pit. The trees are now over 70 years.

  Add To Bucket List   I Have Visited This Place

Get 2 points if you have visited this place. Already visited by 66 VIPs.

Login to the VIP area to add places to your bucket list, mark them as visited and more importantly see where you rank on the league table.

How To Find Easington Colliery

Where Is Easington Colliery?

Show Place On Google Maps

Lat / Long

54.792947, -1.318422

What three words

pillow.something.wiggles

Where To Park For Easington Colliery?

Show Parking On Google Maps

Lat / Long

54.789497, 54.789497

What three words

woke.splash.drain

You can ditch your car at the Easington Colliery Coastal car park. Then you are only a short walk from the Pit Head.

Contributed by Rosalind Parker

Thanks for reading through and getting to the end of this post. I enjoy exploring the Fabulous North (Especially as a Southerner residing up North). I like 'snippets' of information, and more so, if they are obscure, amusing or meaningful. The photographs are taken on a mobile phone, without any enhancements.

More Places from Rosalind
Rosalind Parker

More Places In Peterlee

Find more fabulous places in Peterlee, County Durham and if you know of a place we haven't listed, then let us know.

Boxing Gloves
Boxing Gloves
Art Peterlee County Durham

Six foot pair of boxing gloves commemorating the achievements of Maurice Cullen.

Castle Eden Dene
Castle Eden Dene
Landscape Peterlee County Durham

221 hectares of woodland, grassland and paths leading to the beautiful Durham coast.

Apollo Pavilion
Apollo Pavilion
Art Peterlee County Durham

A Brutalist public work of art in Peterlee, designed by British Artist and Architect, Victor Pasmore.

More Landmarks

So this landmark wasn't enough and you want more? Don't worry we have you covered.

Kirkcarrion
Kirkcarrion
Landmark Middleton-in-Teesdale County Durham

An ancient burial ground for a Bronze Age chieftain called Prince Caryn.

Beacon On Beacon Hill South
Beacon On Beacon Hill South
Landmark Richmond North Yorkshire

A beacon on a hill just outside Richmond that was supposidly erected for Millennium celebrations.

Winter's Gibbet
Winter's Gibbet
Landmark Elsdon Northumberland

A replica of the gibbet used to display the body of the murderer William Winter.

Find Walks To Easington Colliery

Find which walks will visit Easington Colliery and plan your next adventure.

Blast Beach To Easington Pit Cage
Blast Beach To Easington Pit Cage
9km (6 miles) Seaham County Durham

This zig-zag walk takes you from Blast Beach at Noses Point Seaham to Easington Pit Cage, then back over Beacon Hill and through Hawthorn Dene. It goes down and up beaches, a viaduct, and a trig point.

Never Miss A Fabulous Place

If you are afraid of missing out on all the fabulous places we post, or just want to be the first to know, then sign up to the Fabulous North.

Each week we will email you all the brand new places that we visit.

Sign Up To Alerts
Sign up to newsletter
Fabulous North On Facebook

Find Us On Facebook

We post all our new places daily on our Facebook Groups page, so join the group today and be notified when we add a new place.

Join Our Facebook Group

Easington Colliery was listed in Landmark // County Durham // Peterlee