Chopwell Colliery was a coal mine situated at

Chopwell Chopwell is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England, west of Rowlands Gill and north of Hamsterley, Consett, Hamsterley. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 9,395. In 1150, Hugh de Puiset, Bishop Puds ...

, in

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcastl ...

. The pit was first sunk in 1781, and was closed on 25 November 1966. The colliery was bought by the

Consett Iron Company The Consett Iron Company Ltd was an industrial business based in the Consett area of County Durham in the United Kingdom. The company owned coal mines and limestone quarries, and manufactured iron and steel. It was registered on 4 April 1864 a ...

in 1896, before being handed over to the National Coal Board in 1947, when the British coal industry was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

. The colliery's highest employment numbers were in 1921, when 2,185 people worked there. A

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts Nameplate capacity, capacity. They ...

was situated at the colliery, which as well as generating its own electricity, received surplus electricity from the generating equipment at

Derwenthaugh Coke Works Derwenthaugh Coke Works was a coking plant on the River Derwent near Swalwell in Gateshead. The works were built in 1928 on the site of the Crowley's Iron Works, which had at one time been the largest iron works in Europe. The coke works was c ...

Nature reserve

After the closing of the colliery, part of the site was turned into the Chopwell Meadows Nature Reserve. In June 2014,

Durham Wildlife Trust Durham Wildlife Trust, founded in 1971, is a registered charity which aims to protect wildlife and promote nature conservation in parts of County Durham and Tyne and Wear, England. It is one of 46 such organisations that together constitute The ...

took over the management of this reserve from Gateshead Council and will continue the work to develop the area for wildlife.

References

External links

Coal mines in Tyne and Wear Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom Former coal mines Nature reserves of the Durham Wildlife Trust Power stations in North East England {{UK-powerstation-stub