During County Durham’s mining heyday there were six collieries in Hunwick, starting here when a shaft was sunk four metres in diameter and 58 metres deep. The coal had a high carbon content, making it suitable for coke and at this colliery’s peak there were 44 coke ovens.

From 1896 until the closure in 1921 fireclay was also mined to manufacture bricks and tiles. The custom of landowners leasing the right to mine coal can be traced back to 1640, when the Bishop of Durham, Thomas Morton, was among those receiving royalties. The Dean and Chapter also benefited, as did Matthew Bell, a Northumberland MP who became the owner of Hunwick Hall through marriage.

The original lessee credited with creating Hunwick Colliery was George Allison, but in 1842 Thomas Cumming Gibson took over an area of 712 acres, with the seams extending as far as the rear of Hunwick Hall. The main seam, known as the Brockwell, was 56 inches thick. The Gibson pit had two shafts, the first built of stone and the second of brick. One section of the main shaft was used for pumping out water.

Most of the men and boys working here probably lived across the river in Newfield and an 1860 map shows two bridges, although the upstream one was gone by 1896. At 58 metres, the main shaft did not reach the deepest seam, the Victoria, so in 1912 it was accessed by a brick-arched drift into the river bank. This was connected to Newfield by a tramway over a new bridge. There were a lot of railway lines leading from the station sidings by that time.

Also close to the river was the Bridge of Hunwick colliery AND the Bell PIT, which had both a vertical shaft and a drift. There was a long line of beehive-shaped coke ovens by the Wear, with two sets of railway tracks, for loading and discharge, either side of the ovens.

In 1864 Hunwick colliery was advertised for sale, with the contents of the site including 44 coke ovens, two houses, a blacksmith’s shop, joiner’s shop, office, store, stables and 300 coal wagons. T C Gibson, the colliery owner, had 119 wagons and also owned a three-masted, iron, steam-driven schooner, SS Hunwick. Laden with coal, it left Hartlepool for London on November 15, 1858, and foundered in a gale off Yarmouth. The crew survived in their lifeboat.

To prevent the workings of different collieries overlapping it was agreed not to mine within 40 yards of the boundary of a royalty, but legal disputes still occurred. One example was Newton Cap miners accusing those at Hunwick Colliery of tapping into their reserves. They had found some old tools, probably used in the Old Birtley drift mine, which was connected to Hunwick Colliery half a mile away.

The Durham Mining Museum lists 21 miners being killed at Hunwick Colliery. They included a 13-year-old horse-driver, William Holden, whose head was trapped between the shaft and a cage, which was carrying nine boys down the mine.