Coal Mining in Britain by Richard Hayman

Author:Richard Hayman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784421229
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The pit-head layout at Hebburn Colliery, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the mid-nineteenth century included the engine on the left. To the right of the wooden head gear is the heapstead where the coal was screened.

When it was brought to the surface the coal was screened, or sieved. Coal was tipped on to picking belts, moving conveyors from which the largest lumps of coal and any dirt were removed. Coal was then tipped into screens – essentially large sieves with iron grates set at about half an inch apart – to remove the small coal. Screens were developed over the nineteenth century to allow finer grading of coal to suit different markets. Screening plants were usually raised on stilts to allow for the coal to be fed through chutes into railway wagons beneath them, a structure known as the heapstead. Coal washers were also used from the mid-nineteenth century, and developed further in the twentieth. Clean coal is light and floats in a tank of water, where it was screened off. Coal with dirt in it sinks so, when it was removed, it was crushed to separate dirt from the coal before being washed again in a separate tank.

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