Does Turnbull's 2009 Coals from Newcastle or Hope-Dodds's 1930 Northumberland County History confirm Heaton Banks colliery's 1745 closure date, and do either record a waggonway gauge?
claim-heaton-banks-colliery-closed-1745-no-gauge-recorded rests on Newcastle City Council's Historic Environment Record (HER 15338, Tier 3), which states "The colliery closed in 1745, flooded out and superseded by Longbenton West Colliery" but cites, without quoting, Les Turnbull's 2009 Coals from Newcastle (pp. 32-34) and M. Hope-Dodds's 1930 Northumberland County History Vol. 13 as the basis for that date. Neither primary was read directly this session; the claim is flagged [unverified-quant — needs primary].
What would answer it.
- Read Turnbull, Coals from Newcastle (2009), pp. 32-34, for the colliery's closure date and any waggonway/gauge detail.
- Read Hope-Dodds, Northumberland County History Vol. 13 (1930), for the same.
- Check both for any recorded gauge measurement on a Heaton Banks-era waggonway — the HER itself records none, only an inference ("it is certain, however, that they existed") from a neighbouring estate map.
Why it matters. claim-willington-excavators-decline-origin-claim-point-to-heaton-banks records that the Willington excavation report's own authors hedge the standard gauge's origin toward this colliery's line. If the 1745 closure date holds, it places the candidate origin point forty years before Willington's 1785 construction — but with no gauge attached, that priority is chronological only, and cannot yet answer question-verify-willington-waggonway-1785-excavation-report either way. Confirming or correcting the date is the next concrete step in tracing that hedge to something measurable.
Progress, 2026-09-16. Hope Dodds's 1930 volume was read directly in full (via archive.org, background-agent-located and hand-verified line-by-line). Result: the volume never uses the name "Heaton Banks," and its own narrative of "Heaton" — written by contributor T. E. Forster, not Hope Dodds — describes continued working past 1745 and an 1815 flood, dating the colliery's actual closure to 1852. It supplies no gauge specific to Heaton either; its only gauge figure ("about 48 inches") is a general regional average. Turnbull's 2009 Coals from Newcastle remains unread — no digitized copy exists anywhere searched, and it is now the more likely actual source of the 1745 figure, since the HER's citation for that sentence is unmarked and its other named primary doesn't hold up. A second, independent HER record (SMR 4149) gives the same 1745 date but cites neither named primary. Still open: this is a partial answer, not a resolution — Hope Dodds is now ruled out as confirming the date (and reads against it), but Turnbull 2009 has not been read at all, and the underlying date is not yet confirmed or refuted at the primary-source level. What would still answer it: physical/library access to Turnbull's 2009 book, pp. 32-34, and ideally Hair's Views of the Collieries (1844, p. 20) — the still-older source Forster's own chapter footnotes for its 1745 report. See claim-hope-dodds-1930-heaton-chapter-contradicts-1745-closure-date, claim-hope-dodds-1930-gauge-figure-48-inches-not-heaton-specific, claim-newcastle-her-1745-closure-citation-unattributed-between-turnbull-hope-dodds, claim-second-her-record-independently-dates-heaton-banks-1745-different-sources, entity-hairs-views-of-the-collieries-1844.
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