Washington Waggonway
Early June 2009:
We have just completed excavations at our site on the Wear Industrial
Estate in Washington, Tyne and Wear. The site lies north of the
site of Harraton Colliery, which was potentially in operation as
early as c. 1590, while the site itself lay within an area –
generally known from the post-medieval period as 'Harraton Outside'-
that was dotted with outlying coal workings and criss-crossed by
numerous waggonways transporting coal to staithes at Fatfield on
the Wear.
Photo 1: View to the south along the main waggonway route.
Cartographic evidence from the late 18th and up to the mid 19th
century indicates that Hall Pit and Engine Pit of Harraton Outside
Colliery lay just beyond the north-western and north-eastern corners
of the site, respectively, while Thorold Pit and Milbank Pit lay
within or just beyond the southern central portion of the site,
although both were seemingly out of use by the mid 19th century.
By the time of the Ordnance Survey 1st edition map in 1856, the
routes of three waggonways crossed the site. All three may have
been of considerable age by then, probably having been operational
since the mid-18th century, perhaps earlier.
Photo 2: Detailed excavation of the remains of the waggonway
tracks.
The three waggonways crossing this site branched from Fatfield
Waggonway at a point just inside the southern site boundary, before
leaving the site at various points along its northern boundary,
two continuing north-westwards to serve Hall Pit and Anna Bella
Pit, with the third running northwards with a branching route to
serve Ayton Pit, Noel Pit, Judith Pit and Engine Pit. The routes
of two of these waggonways remained preserved in the landscape as
footpaths/tracks until the site was developed as part of the Wear
Industrial Estate in the late 1960s.
Photo 3 and 4: Careful cleaning the surviving timber rails
and sleepers on the coal track-bed.
The earliest versions of the waggonway system which we are uncovering
have timber sleepers and rails - as the photographs demonstrate
- although in some cases the timbers have been ‘robbed-out’
or have simply perished. At this site, large embankments of re-used
natural clay were raised to carry the tracks at the correct gradient
and coal waste was packed down around the sleepers to form robust
track-beds. Since iron rails came into use on Tyne and Wear waggonways
from around 1790 - and were generally widespread in the region by
around 1820 - it is fairly certain that the earliest remains that
we are uncovering are of 18th century date. Already this appears
to be one of the best sites containing early railway remains to
be excavated in the region.
Photo 5: Detail of timber rails and underlying sleeper (scale
10cm).
|
