Grinkle Iron Mine Culvert - Easington (Oct '09)

[MJS]

Took these pics last year, but seeing as though I'm new to the forum, I thought I'd post them up!

Grinkle iron mine was opened in 1875, it was situated in the bottom of a deep sided valley, There simply wasn't enough room to build the various mine buildings, so it was necessary to culvert the Easington beck at the mine site. A stone tunnel was built over the beck in 1875, then it was covered with thousands of tonnes of spoil to create a level area. The mine buildings and narrow gauge tramway sidings could now be built.
The Grinkle iron mine was closed in 1930, it was no longer making any profit, three years earlier the beck culvert collapsed which caused the mine to flood and killed several miners. The collapsed section was strengthened in 1927 with metal props and sleepers, there have been two further collapse's since then.