Langley Park Colliery

Langley Park first came about because of a railway line running from Durham to Consett Iron Works. In fact, although the station was based within the Langley Park boundaries, it was named Witton Gilbert Station because at the time, Langley Park did not exist as a village.

First sinkings of the colliery took place in 1874, but were abandoned because of severe water problems. Consett Iron Works who owned the mine, almost abandoned the idea of a colliery at Langley Park. William Logan, the first manager of the Colliery finally brought the colliery to life, and the first coals were drawn on 24th April 1875. With the colliery came the workmen's houses, and eventually the whole social infrastructure of a mining village, the local Co-op, the Working Men's Club, Langley Park Hotel were being developed. It was one hundred years later, on 31st October 1975, that the colliery was closed. Many other collieries in the North West Durham area had been closed, and it was the thought of the villagers that the only reason Langley Park Colliery was not closed was so that it could celebrate its centenary.

In future blogs, we will look at how the village developed alongside the colliery.

First Day as a Blogger!

26 June 2008

Today is the first day that we have managed to put the Langley Park Banners on line. It is a bit of a first for the Sam Watson Banner as it had been donated to East Hetton when our colliery closed in 1975. In the true history of banners, East Hetton replaced the Langley Park title with their own name and we could not find any colour photographs of it's original state. Thanks to playing with PhotoShop, we have now restored it (virtually) to it's original lettering 'Langley Park Lodge".
There will be many more posts with mining information as we get used to this blogging!