Shildon Lodge Colliery
Coal mine that employed boys during the war
Type: Industrial
“Shildon Lodge Coliery was started on land owned by Robert Surtees in 1830, using the “Surtees Railway” to link it to the Stockton and Darlington Railway near the junction with the Black Boy Branch. The colliery was worked by Bolckow and Vaughan. Seams worked included Low Main, Harvey and Brockwell. The large tall building contained the winding gear that lowered the cages down the shaft, driven by a steam engine: the tall chimney to the left was for the boiler. Underground the workings linked up with those of other mines. The buildings on the road were the colliery offices, where the miners checked in and out, with the overmen’s and manager’s offices beyond. Behind the fence on the left was the railway.”
Description of Shildon Lodge Colliery from “Coal Mining in Durham” by County Education Curriculum Group in cooperation with the Northern Echo, 1993.
Also known as “Datton”, there is some disagreement about when Shildon Lodge finally closed. It seems that it may have been moth-balled several times in the 1920s and probably finally closed around 1937/8.
During the First World War, Durham County Council took a number of parents to Bishop Auckland magistrates’ court for allowing their children to be employed at Shildon Lodge Colliery. The case was dismissed. (Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 27 April 1916)
Durham Mining Museum website, page for Shildon Lodge Colliery
http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/s045.htm
Graces Guide website, page for Bolckow, Vaughan and Co:
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Bolckow,_Vaughan_and_Co
Civil Parish: Shildon
Contributed by Durham County Record Office
