Working with Penguin and The British Museum, we’ve given reading groups the chance to explore their local museums and tell us all about their favourite discoveries.
Shadforth WI Book Group chose an object which represents the mining industry which, even in its absence, continues to have a major effect on their local community.
The headframes and sheave wheels at Woodhorn Colliery
“To represent mining we selected the headframes and sheave wheels, with their related buildings, at Woodhorn Mining Museum in Northumberland. Headframes, also known as gallows frames, are the tall structures erected over a mine shaft to carry the sheave wheels, over which a cable runs for hoisting the cage.
“_Woodhorn Colliery was a working colliery for more than 80 years and is now perhaps the best surviving example of a late 19th century colliery in the North East tradition. The Ashington Coal Company sunk the first shaft in 1894 and coal was produced there from 1898 to 1981. At its height, in the early 20th century, over 2,000 workers worked at the pit and 600,000 tons of coal was produced each year. The colliery was sealed by British Coal and turned into a museum in 1989, with additional improvements in 2006._
“Being tall, the headframes and sheave wheels were the most visually obvious part of the mine buildings as they could be seen from a distance and above walls surrounding mines, even being mentioned in contemporary literature. Headframes were part of the skyline, as common as church spires, part of life, and highlighted the presence of pits and all that entailed for over a hundred years. Woodhorn was one of more than 200 mines in Northumberland alone. That the site is now recognised as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with several listed buildings, shows the modern understanding of the importance of preserving our industrial heritage. The headframes and sheave wheels of Woodhorn help to show the sheer height and scale of these strange constructions that once were such a part of many town and village lives, and remind us of an industry which occupied a major role in the history of Britain.”
Contributor: Lara Thompson
