Dear Graham.
Got your enquiry from the history web site.
As you will know Graham is an old 'Boarder Riever' name of much antiquity.
In the 1790's Farlam and the nearby Kirkhouse was at the hub of Lord
Carlisle's coalfield which was then starting to develop in a big way. The
collieries they were working at the time were sittuated high on the Cumbrian
Fells and connected to the town of Brampton by one of the earliest waggon
ways in Cumbria. It was horse drawn up to the collieries then gravity all, or
most of the way back down.
This was a very rural comunity who's miners had quite good conditions in
which to live and work, most having a few acres of land to keep a pig, cow
ect. This coalfield continued to grow and flurish untill the 1890's then
after a disaster in 1908 it temporaly closed down. New owners were found and
the pits carried on untill the last closed in 1958, leaving one private drift
working untill about 1970.
In the 1790's the collieries of Tarnhouse and Talkin were operating and they
consisted of a multitude of pits around the fells. A virtual army of hostlers
carried coal on pack horse over the various coal roads which traversed the
fells, Cumrew was, if I remember correctly, one of the coal stores.
The waggon way , or parts of it, became the first main line railway in
Cumbria and was opened to the newly developed Midgeholme colliery in 1825.
Stephenson's Rocket was later purchaced and operated around 1836.
In the 1830's Lord Carlisle was leasing Blenkinsopp Colliery at Greenhead
near Haltwhistle, (look at James Findley's web site just type Blenkinsopp
colliery into your search engine. The drift leading to the stables was
operative in 1825 to 1835 when the colliery changed hands.) In Haltwhistle
it'self at the time the collieries working were South Tyne and Fell End,
Plenmellor and I think Barcombe.
I hope this may have been of some help
Clive Seal.
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