Percy Main Colliery	Index	Percy Main Colliery

Location:	North Shields 5½ miles [9 km] ENE of Newcastle
Map Ref:	(Sheet 88) NZ337670, 54° 59' 50" N, 1° 28' 21" W
Maps:	1807 map from "The Picture of Newcastle Upon Tyne…", published in 1807 by D. Akenhead
	1860s map detailed map from the Ordnance Survey
Opened:
Closed:
Pits:	Flatworth Pit, locn: (Sheet 88) NZ325679
	Shaft details for Flatworth Pit
	Percy Pit
	Shaft details for Percy Pit
Employment:	1843 - 611
	Catalogue of plans of abandoned mines for Percy Main Colliery

Description

Proceeding eastward from Willington, we arrive at Percy Main, or Howden Pans Colliery, which is situated about a mile and half from North Shields. The sinking of the old pit was completed in 1799. A formidable quicksand, which lay at the depth of 30 fathoms from the surface, with a feeder of water of 1,400 or 1,500 gallons per minute, greatly impeded the sinking and increased the expense. The sand was passed, and the water dammed back, by a cast-iron tub — the first that was used in the coal-trade for sinking through quicksands. The depth to the High Main coal is 120 fathoms, and 160 to the Bensham seam, which is the deepest that has yet been worked; but the whole series of the Tyne seams, with the exception of the Three-quarter coal, exist in this pit. The workings extend under the bed of the Tyne. A new winning, 135 fathoms deep, was opened in 1806-7.

In some parts the seams rise at a considerable angle, and the workings on the rise side of the pit soon ascend much above the bottom of the shaft. This circumstance was productive of a singular phenomenon in 1807.

The colliery having been set on fire, it became necessary to drown up the workings to extinguish it, and the shaft was filled with water to the depth of 20 or 30 fathoms. When the engine began to draw the water out again, it worked for several weeks without apparently making any impression, the water sometimes rising and sometimes falling. At length an immense eruption of inflammable air issued suddenly from the mouth of the pit, which continued, for 8 or 10 minutes, to vomit a prodigious quantity of gas, when it as suddenly ceased, and all was tranquil again. In half an hour a similar eruption took place; and for 26 hours these eruptions were repeated at regular intervals of half an hour, when they ceased, and the gas continued to discharge itself in gluts, and beating like a "water hammer," with a loud noise, through the column of water, which had fallen suddenly to the depth of a fathom or two in the bottom of the shaft. The cause of this curious phenomenon was the inflammable air being confined in the rise workings, and compressed, by the column of water in the shaft, to a degree equal to the weight of that column. When the water was sufficiently lightened by the working of the engine, the compressed air overcame the resistance, and rushed out of the mouth of the pit like the discharge of an immense air-gun. A similar phenomenon, from a similar cause, has recently been exhibited from the Bensham seam; the only difference being that instead of the gas discharging itself by distinct eruptions, at certain intervals, it was blown off, after the first eruption, in a continuous stream, like an enormous gas-pipe, which lasted three days.

Views of the Collieries (1844)

Disasters (5 or more killed)

None Found

Names of those killed at this colliery

Please note that this collection of names is by no means complete!

						Dobinson, Thomas, 17 Sep 1847, fell down shaft [More information ...]
						Murray, Walter, 17 Sep 1847, fell down shaft [More information ...]
						2 names found

If you know of any fatalities missing from the above list then please contact us with the details and we will add them to our database.

  more information on some of the fatalities shown above

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Date							Inspectors Remarks
02 May 1851	–	–	–	–	1	1	Killed by gin

Collieries and Pits within 5 miles (8km)

  a simulated map showing the immediate vicinity of Percy Main Colliery

  list of collieries/pits etc. near to Percy Main Colliery

Credits

Sources:

Pictures:

Related Links:

	On this site
	Evidence given to the 1842 Children's Employment Commission
	Views of the Collieries in the Counties of Northumberland and Durham by T. H. Hair (1844) — Percy Main Colliery
	Pictures in the Gallery section for Percy Main Colliery

Further Research:

  Research Notes for Percy Main Colliery