The Bessie, Blaydon Burn

Imagine the miner leaving his terraced home at dawn, bait box in hand. He trudges down the steep steps into the burn ready for a long shift underground in the Bessie, a drift mine forming part of Blaydon Burn Colliery. This video shows the blocked off Bessie entrance on the very steep sided burn. Opened in the 1850s by Joseph Cowen, by the late 1800s Blaydon Burn Colliery was producing 100.000 tons of coal per annum. It was taken by rail down to Blaydon then on to Tyne Dock for shipping. I wonder if Cowen ever brought his friend and associate Giuseppe Garibaldi here to show him the mine workings. By the 1930s, and now owned by the Priestman family, it employed well over 1000 people at two pits, the Mary and the Bessie. It finally closed in 1956.
(background music - 'Silverhill Days' from an album 'A Legend Evermore'.

[@CCJazzmen]

We had quite a few miners in the family who worked at the Rising Sun colliery. This is very nostalgic.

[@BlaydonAces]

We had miners in the family too. Specially on my wife's side. Her dad worked at Esh (from age 14) then moved to Clara Vale on Tyneside and ended up at Westoe, South Shields.

[@sedge2002]

got some photos of underground there

[@BlaydonAces]

Hello. If you've not already done so you may wish to contact Val Scully about your photos. She has just published a lovely book about Blaydon Burn (The Wheel of Time) and is always looking for new material. You can make contact via her website. I'm sure she would be very interested.
www.valscully.co.uk/