THE Pitmen and Prelates exhibition will unearth the 1,000-year hidden history behind the complex – even sometimes fraught – bond connecting the Prince Bishops and the once mighty County Durham mining fraternity.

Opening today (May 27) at Auckland Castle, it is the first exhibition of its kind to examine how the unearthing of Durham’s vast coal reserves, which in turn led to the rise of the North-East as an industrial powerhouse, affected the lives of both the Bishops and local people.

Looking at the period between the Industrial Revolution and the Thatcher era, the retrospective will focus on six bishops and feature the work of two of County Durham’s best-known mining artists – Norman Cornish and Tom McGuinness – alongside many previously unseen objects, including a miner’s lamp damaged in the West Stanley pit disaster of 1909, which killed 168 men.

The exhibition, which runs until Friday, September 30, builds on last summer’s acclaimed Birth of the Blues exhibition, which centred on the religious and community roots of Bishop Auckland Football Club.

Clare Baron, Auckland Castle’s curator temporary exhibitions, says: “The connection between the Bishops and the miners goes back many centuries. One of the earliest references to mining in the North-East is in the Boldon Book of 1183, which is a survey of the Palatinate similar to the Doomsday Book, which didn’t cover the territory governed by what were at that time the Prince Bishops of Durham, who were virtually autonomous rulers.

“We are very excited to have secured the loan of a number of outstanding pieces of mining art depicting both what life was like underground and for those living in the tight knit communities that sprung up around the County Durham pits, the coal from which is credited with helping stimulate the Industrial Revolution and cement the area as the birthplace of the railways.

“We are privileged to feature the work of two of perhaps County Durham’s best known mining artists in Norman Cornish and Tom McGuinness. The Ashington Pitmen Painters are probably today better known, but there was a thriving and respected creative community around Spennymoor in the 1930s.”

The six Bishops featured are Shute Barrington (1791-1826), Edward Maltby (1836-1856), Brooke Foss Westcott (1890-1901), Handley Moule (1901-1920), Herbert Hensley Henson (1920-1939), and David Jenkins (1984-1994).

Particular highlights will include John Hodgson Campbell’s Under the Coaly Tyne (c1880-1890), which is the earliest-known artistic impression of an underground mining scene not created for Parliament or the press, and Race Course at Durham (1887), by an unknown artist, and painted in an Impressionist style, which is believed to be one of the first depictions of the Durham Miners’ Gala.

Also included is McGuinness’ large and vibrant canvas, Miners’ Gala, 1976, on loan from Barclays Bank, Durham, and Cornish’s undated Mount Pleasant street scene, lent by his grandson, David Cornish.

The exhibition is being curated by Dr Robert McManners and Gillian Wales, who together have built up a sizeable collection of mining art from the Great Northern Coalfields, the Gemini Collection. They have published extensively on this genre, including the definitive biographies of McGuinness and Cornish.

Their book, Shafts of Light (£14.95), featuring more than 70 coalfield artists, will be available to buy at Auckland Castle during the exhibition.

The exhibition will be held in the majestic King Charles Room at Auckland Castle, appropriately the very location where Bishop Westcott gathered pit owners and union representatives to end the strike of 1892.