South Hetton, East Front Street before 1908. This coloured print shows the view from a few yards to the east of the view in HET 014, with South Lodge(?) on the left and South View (subsequently the residence of the Mechanical Engineer) on the right. The last of the chimneys in the background was demolished in the mid-1950s when the majority of the surface faciclities at the pit were redeveloped. The road was surfaced with crushed rock (macadamised) until the lifetime of my father (b. 1921), when the surface was sealed with coal tar (tarmac). Caption by Sheldon Clark
Eight Rows South Hetton. The Eight Rows (James Street, Smith Street, Hall Street and Forster Street) are seen from the allotment gardens in the angle of the South Hetton Railway (Dobson's Branch) and "The LNER". South Hetton Lodge is prominent on the skyline; this was the home of the Colliery Agent in the days of The South Hetton Coal Company but after private ownership of the mines came to an end it became an Approved School (known to everyone in South Hetton as "The Remand Home"). Caption by Sheldon Clark
South Hetton Colliery c1930. This picture shows the surface facilities, including at least one Winding House, at a stage well before the redevelopment of the mid-1950s. It is taken from the Easington to Wardley road (later A182), across the pond which produced thousands of froglets every spring before it was filled in and converted into a car park. The camera is pointing approximately north-eastward. Caption by Sheldon Clark
South Hetton Colliery. This shot again shows the surface facilities, including the screens and a number of the chaldron wagons (see HET 009) which were to be found in one form or another all over the Northumberland and Durham Coalfield from the days of the wagonways in the 18th Century until at least the late 1960s, when I saw some just a few yards from where the photographer was standing when he made this exposure. The signal appears to be of the wooden "slotted post" type so much favoured by railways in the North East of England, some having been preserved on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway at Grosmont and/or Goathland, I believe. Caption by Sheldon Clark
