Gibside Estate, Snipes Dean Pit

HER Number:
3653

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Gibside Estate, Snipes Dean Pit

Place:
Gibside

Map Sheet:
NZ15NE

Class:
Industrial

Site Type: Broad:
Coal Mining Site

Site Type: Specific:
Colliery

General Period:
Post Medieval

Specific Period:
C17

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
Snipes Dean Pit (Coal) shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map {1}. MPP Site Assessment - References to coal working on the Gibside estate date from 1607 and ceased with the closure of a small drift mine in 1884. Surviving features include the mouth of a drift, two adits and a small concentration of shaft mounds. The workings appear to be relatively small scale, but may include undisturbed C17 underground galleries {2}. Drift mine entrance. The coal estate at West and East Gibside was owned by the Blakiston family. In 1608 there were 'colemynes as well opened as not opened' in Snipes Dene in West Gibside. This deep dene facilitated free drainage of upper seams. A millpond below it, used in the 18th century as a paper mill, must have worked a coalmill for the lower seams before that.

Easting:
1829

Northing:
5921

Grid Reference:
NZ18295921

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 3653 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey Map, c.1855, 6 inch scale, Durham, 6 English Heritage, Monuments Protection Program, Site Assessment; Harry Beamish, Autumn 1993, Summary Table - Gibside; Eric Clavering and Alan Rounding, 1995, Early Tyneside Industrialism: The lower Derwent and Blaydon Burn Valleys 1550-1700, Archaeologia Aeliana, Series 5, Vol XXIII, pages 249-268; David Levine and Keith Wrightson, 1991, The Making of an Industrial Society: Whickham 1560-1765, pages 33-34; J.U. Nef, 1932, The Rise of the British Coal Industry, ii, p 415, Durham Record Office D/St/D5/2/16, 17; D/St/D5/2/120-6; Surtees Society Vol 142, page 27