HIGH on the top of the ravine, the new-build houses huddle together protectively as if to keep themselves warm in the face of a bitter gale ripping in from the battleship grey North Sea.

This new two-tone settlement of orange and cream bricks has been built as close to the precipice as the developers dare, and it looks down from behind its tall fences on the old settlement of Easington Colliery which nestles below in the ravine.

Seaside Lane runs along the ravine, its most dominant building being the twin hulks of the old school. The school has been derelict since 1998 - the clock on the wall stopped at five to six, and deadeyes have thrown stones through its face, smashing out the numbers 12 and one.

The school is the only Grade II listed building in the village, and one of the last connections with the colliery that created the place. On Wednesday, against advice, the local council granted permission for the school to be demolished so that more new-builds can be crammed onto its site.

The school is quite frighteningly huge amid the tight clutter of small terraced streets surrounding it.

It must have terrified toddlers on their first day. They would have stood dwarfed beneath its four towers, topped by grey domes that reach for the sky. And they would have been cowed by the giant stone letters over the doors. "Infants" must go this way. "Boys" must go that. "Girls" must be over there.

"Manual Instruction" bellows another plinth, and it is too dreadful to imagine what educational torture went on inside its door.

Perhaps the school's size was its point. One of Easington's early colliery banners bore the legend "knowledge is power", and the school loomed large over the community as a deliberate reminder for youngsters that knowledge was their only way out - or at least their only way to avoid going below.

The school was built just before the First World War just as the first coal was extracted from the pit. The Easington Coal Company had decided in 1899 to try the coastal ravine, but such were the problems with water seepage that it went bankrupt in 1904.

In 1907, the Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Company took over and, using German "freezing" techniques, kept the water out and carried the first coal out in 1912.

The borers' huts were replaced with more permanent brick terraces with alphabetical names - hence we know Ascot Street, with its Edwardian two-tone of salmon pink and cream, was one of the first new-builds of its day. Then came the school.

The colliery's heyday was the 1930s when it employed more than 3,000 men. Just before it closed on May 7, 1993, there were nearly 2,000 at work.

Its most awful day was May 29, 1951, when a pick struck pyrites, creating a spark which ignited some gas which sent a fireball rolling along 16,000 yards of underground way. It was shift changeover time. The 81 men at the bottom lost their lives, as did two who went to rescue them.

Flicking through their names and addresses, 13 came from the A-named streets behind Ascot Street, 14 lived in B-block opposite and eight of them in C-block which runs towards the sea.

Their pit has now gone, landscaped under grass which contains a corner devoted to a memorial garden. Now their school, where their small feet pressed into the playground on their first day, is to go, too.

It is progress, but can Easington ever escape its past?