THE remote fells of west Durham were once full of coalminers and confusing place names. Memories 118 was stumbled across them in search of the mines owned by the Bishop Auckland company Shaw and Knight, which used coal and clay to create sanitary ware.

Many thanks to everyone who has been in touch. There will be more in future weeks.

First, let’s locate a couple of collieries in the Deerness Valley.

In 1861, this area west of Esh Winning was an empty, agricultural place with a population of 93. Twenty years later, there was a population of more than 1,500. Coal had come.

The first collieries had been sunk by Darlington’s Pease family in the 1830s in Hedleyhope and East Hedleyhope, and they came into their own in the 1870s when they were joined by Hedley Hill.

In 1873, a contingent from Hedley Hill carried their banner to the Durham Gala. It showed two miners creeping out of a dark hole, and the words: “We get our bread at the peril of our lives. Our skin is black like the oven because of the labour we perform.”

Many miners lived in the new village of East Hedleyhope.

A schoolroom was built there in 1877 for 350 pupils, but north at Hedley Hill there was a reading room, a library, plus another school – with master’s house attached – for 150 more pupils.

“With my dad at the wheel, many years ago, we went through Hedley Hill on a regular basis,” says David Armstrong.

“He always called it Hedley Hill Over The Hill.”

This was a fairly familiar nickname, probably because Hedley Hill Colliery was over the hill from Hedley Hill village.

David recalls: “On each and every occasion we went that way, dad informed us that the schoolmaster had been a blackleg during the 1926 strike, in which his dad, my grandad, had been heavily involved working at Wooley pit, on Stanley hilltop.

The Northern Echo: Inside a beehive oven
Inside one of the beehive ovens

“I think that the schoolmaster had taken and reported the readings from a small reservoir there, which must have been connected to the workings of the various mines.”

As you travelled across the county, the seams rose and fell and the names varied. In mid-Durham, there was a thin seam – less than 2ft wide – called “Ballarat”, which the rest of the coalfield knew as “Top Busty”.

Ballarat is an Aboriginal word for “camping place”. In 1851, gold was discovered at a camping place in Victoria, Australia, and 20,000 golddiggers rushed to the Ballarat area.

Presumably, the black gold of the Ballarat seam was identified by mid-Durham miners just as they were hearing stories of untold wealth from the goldrush miners of Ballarat.

There are about 20 seams of coal beneath the Durham soil.

The National Coal Board gave them letters, with A closest to the surface and V the deepest down. Miners gave them names.

The letters and the most common names of the main seams were: C: Five Quarter E: Main H: Maudlin L: Hutton N: Harvey P: Tilly Q: Busty R: Three Quarter S: Brockwell T: Victoria IN the 1890s, the three Hedley- related collieries employed nearly 1,000 men and boys between them. Their coal was turned to coke in beehive ovens and was then used in the Tow Law ironworks.

The Northern Echo: Post office row
Post Office Row, a miners terrace in East Hedleyhope, in 1963

But the mines’ heyday was brief. East Hedleyhope was all but shut at the start of the 20th Century; Hedley Hill closed in November 1929; Hedleyhope faded out in the 1930s.

All were revived to power during the Second World War – about 600 miners working underground – but only East Hedleyhope survived into peacetime.

It shut on January 31, 1959, with the loss of 274 jobs.

Hedley Hill was turned into a driftmine, digging into the Ballarat seam. Along with the Fir Tree Ballarat drift nearby, 50 miners were employed well into the 1960s, and Harry Hail, of Tow Law, drove the Ballarat coal to S&K’s factory in Bishop Auckland.

“The drift was just along from the Fir Tree Inn, which was known as the “Monkey”

because, as I recall, there was a monkey puzzle tree in front of the pub,” says Harry.

“I believe the drift was part owned by S&K and the Bell’s House Coal Company, of Tow Law. The owners of the wagons were Mr and Mrs Erik Bland. Mrs Bland was secretary of the coal company and of S&K.”

Now, there are lots of wind turbines and a scattering of surviving terraces. “The old school house at Hedley Hill is now a private residence and the pub at the bottom of the hill, known as Beck Row, pulled its last pint many years ago,” reports Harry.

Plus there are old beehive ovens, up at Hedley Hill and down at East Hedleyhope. In fact, the land along the banks of the Deerness is a Scheduled Ancient Monument with the country’s largest collection of mid-19th Century beehives.