Stargate and Crookhill
Stargate or Moonscape? Although gradually returning to a more natural state, you cannot approach Stargate from the south without being aware of how this area has been affected by opencast coal-mining and quarrying.
Perched above Ryton and to the east, Stargate closed to deep mining for the final time in 1961 although it had closed previously in 1830 when an infamous explosion killed 38.
The bypass and quarrying work has removed many landmarks of Stargate's past, but evidence can still be found of the rail and wagonway networks that linked Greenside, Emma and earlier pits and continued down to either the main line at Addison or to the staithes on the Tyne at Stella.
The
rows of pit cottages at Stargate date from the late 1800s. The terraces
at Crookhill date from the Coal industry boom-time before the Great War
when extra housing was needed for miners at Addison and Stargate pits.
"Crookhill" did exist before this, but only as a farm on whose
land the new housing was built.
