Durham coalfield trip ideas

[basfordlad]

Hi everyone

Some help needed please! Got the offer of some free accommodation of two free nights in craghead county Durham, coupled with 20% off cross country fares so booked split fares going to Durham from Chesterfield. Get to Durham about 9.15

Now I know thisnt strictly rail but I would like ( for various reasons) to explore some of the Durham coalfield. I will have two full days bus so I'll most likely get a day ticket for each day.

I want to explore some of the old mining villages including going to the coast at blackhall

Maybe include a bit of walking.

Can anyone give me any ideas as to some routes please. I know ex mining villages are not pretty but that's not reason am going.

Hope people can help

 

[cactustwirly]

Hi everyone

Some help needed please! Got the offer of some free accommodation of two free nights in craghead county Durham, coupled with 20% off cross country fares so booked split fares going to Durham from Chesterfield. Get to Durham about 9.15

Now I know thisnt strictly rail but I would like ( for various reasons) to explore some of the Durham coalfield. I will have two full days bus so I'll most likely get a day ticket for each day.

I want to explore some of the old mining villages including going to the coast at blackhall

Maybe include a bit of walking.

Can anyone give me any ideas as to some routes please. I know ex mining villages are not pretty but that's not reason am going.

Hope people can help

Unless it's a mining museum, I'd strongly advise against visiting said villages.
I have family in a Yorkshire coalfield town, and it really isn't much, there's more to see if you go to Durham itself (very pretty city)

 

[basfordlad]

Oh that's fine. Yes Durham is nice. But as said have reasons for doing this.

 

[basfordlad]

I guess it's no different to people wanting to visit certain railway stations

Under no illusions about the area

 

[Adlenviro]

Have a look at www.dmm.org.uk it's a very good site.

If I was looking to do something like this I would head from Craghead to Durham service 16. Durham to Blackhall service 24. Then head up the coast on service 23 to Sunderland. From there back to Craghead on a service 78A. Will cover quite a few of the pit villages. Services are by Arriva and Go North East so your best option will be a North East Explorer ticket.

 

[30907]

Lived in Greenside for 3 years by the old pithead and opposite the railway yard (the lot finished ca 1965) and the place hasn't changed hugely (we drove through a couple of months ago).
Chopwell, to the SW, felt even more remote but was bigger - IIRC known for its Communist leanings.
Clara Vale at the bottom of the hill in the same parish was simply a few terraces by the pit, plus chapel (now closed) and school (now village hall). From Googlemaps nothing else has changed.
That whole area to the SW of Blaydon is chock full of ex pit communities, but may have been "ex" too long for your purposes.

 

[basfordlad]

Thanks
Indeed the Durham coalfield being one of the older ones and thus finished sooner then others
And cheers for the info

 

[sprinterguy]

If you fancy a bit of walking, there's an 11 mile coastal footpath between Crimdon (North of Hartlepool) and Seaham Hall (South of Sunderland) that'll take you past Blackhall and Easington Colliery:
http://www.durhamheritagecoast.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/01/CoastalFootpathbooklet.pdf

If you're using the buses then you can pretty much cover as much or as little of it as you like.

Closer to Craghead, from a railway interest perspective most of the route of the Washington - Consett line through Beamish, Kip Hill and Annfield Plain is walkable as part of the C2C cycle route, and I feel inclined to mention that there are some pleasant footpaths through Causey woods in the vicinity of the Tanfield Railway, but that might not deliver what you're after.

 

[basfordlad]

Thanks I like the sound of those ideas

 

[basfordlad]

Well that worked really well.
Good service on cross country 1st class going up, prompt and got plenty of snacks and drinks, very pleasant
Found the trip really worth while doing.
Certainly some of the places need a LOT of money spending on them. Easington Colliery for example is almost in a time warp. Obviously very cheap houses, needs people to move their and commute to places like sunderland for work
The North East in the smaller areas is certainly a real ale desert.
Bus services in durham were excellent and good value to, easy to get where i wanted to go

Peterlee is probably the most depressing place i have had the misfortune to travel through!
The walking idea was most appreciated and that was very good

 

[30907]

Easington Colliery for example is almost in a time warp. Obviously very cheap houses, needs people to move their and commute to places like sunderland for work

There's presumably an oversupply of small terraces and undersupply of jobs, so relatively little pressure on the existing Sunderland commuter belt, and too far from Newcastle.
Back in the 60s as pits closed, it was policy NOT to develop the pit villages - it was the development of (car-based) commuting that stopped some of them dying, but the more remote villages haven't seemingly benefited.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Beamish is a wonderful museum offering various reconstructed Victorian homes, a tramway, a pithead and even a working chip shop using period fryers. I think this would satisfy your taste for coalfield history without having to visit run down ex pit villages.

 

[cactustwirly]

Well that worked really well.
Good service on cross country 1st class going up, prompt and got plenty of snacks and drinks, very pleasant
Found the trip really worth while doing.
Certainly some of the places need a LOT of money spending on them. Easington Colliery for example is almost in a time warp. Obviously very cheap houses, needs people to move their and commute to places like sunderland for work
The North East in the smaller areas is certainly a real ale desert.
Bus services in durham were excellent and good value to, easy to get where i wanted to go

Peterlee is probably the most depressing place i have had the misfortune to travel through!
The walking idea was most appreciated and that was very good

It would be interesting to see how these compare to Merthyr, Aberdare etc

 

[basfordlad]

I would say the likes of the valley towns have actually faired better then up in the north east