Rescue at Roseberry: The 1929 Shale Slide

Back in sunny Cleveland, and I am in search of a new morsel of information to accompany a familiar sight.

On this day in 1929, Ralph Elliott, a miner from Great Ayton, had a narrow escape. Working with several others at the “Roseberry mine bank bottom”, he ascended a spoil tip to release shale. Suddenly, a mass of stone, reported to weigh around 5 tons and likely loosened by recent rains, broke away and rushed toward Elliott. Despite his efforts to evade it, he was overtaken and partly buried, with only his head and shoulders left clear. His companions acted swiftly, freeing him within minutes. He was taken to a nearby house and attended by a local doctor. Elliott suffered bruises and shock and was later conveyed home in Gribdale Terrace by the company’s ambulance¹“BURIED BY FALL – Miner’s Escape From Serious Injury.” Reported on 11 June 1929 in a newspaper cutting collected by Tom Kirby probably from the Darlington & Stockton Times..

Reading this, I initially puzzled over the location of the shale tip at the “Roseberry mine bank bottom.” I then realised the “bank” referred to the narrow-guage incline through Newton Wood.

At the foot of this incline was a transhipment yard with a picking shed for sorting saleable ironstone from waste rock. Though the building is no longer visible, some of the spoil tips remain a prominent feature, though now excavated intensely by rabbits. After picking, the ironstone was tipped via a shute into waiting standard-gauge railway wagons. Little evidence of this process remains, apart from a possible support wall and a curving embankment leading to the North Eastern Railway, the starting point of the journey to Teesside’s furnaces.

The mine’s output and workforce dwindled from a peak of 283 men in 1913 to about 164 when it finally ceased operations in June 1924, leaving only a maintenance crew. All equipment was auctioned off in February 1931. During this decommissioning period, some spoil tips were removed, likely sold as road fill, so in 1929, this was probably the work Elliott was involved in.

• 1
  “BURIED BY FALL – Miner’s Escape From Serious Injury.” Reported on 11 June 1929 in a newspaper cutting collected by Tom Kirby probably from the Darlington & Stockton Times.