Information about collieries and coal mining in County Durham.
Durham collieries
You will find information about collieries in the Durham coalfield, from c.1850 to c.1990 if you search Durham collieries. The information includes details of the opening and closure of collieries and their ownership.
Miners and mining history
Few lists of workers in the coal mines have survived. See our guide to colliery personnel records. This list is only a brief guide to the records and more details are available in the catalogues to the relevant collections of documents which can be consulted online.
Use our Mining Durham’s Hidden Depths database to find information about over 140,000 colliery personnel from the Durham Miners’ Association union records and other sources in the Record Office. Details of our holdings of mining records, including photographs are available – search the catalogue.
Records of employees of the National Coal Board are held by Iron Mountain Records Management, and DCC’s Durham Miner Project collected information about local mining history.
