	Fishburn Coking Plant	Index	Fishburn Coking Plant

Fishburn Coking Plant

Location:	Fishburn, nr. Sedgefield 8½ miles [14 km] SE of Durham
Map Ref:	(Sheet 93) NZ361318, 54° 40' 47" N, 1° 26' 24" W
Opened:
Closed:
Output:	1961 - Coke. (250,000 tons)
	1964 - Coke. (225,000 tons)
	1965 - Coke.
	1972 - Coke.
	1979 - Coke.
	1980 - Coke.
	1981 - Coke.
	1982 - Coke.
	1983 - Coke.
Employment:	1961 - 231
	1964 - 235

Description

The plant, built in 1954, to replace older works at Fishburn and Thrislington, consists of 50 Woodall-Duckham underjet compound silica ovens with provision for the addition of lean gas mains etc.

When operating at a coking time of 20 hours, the plant has a capacity of 365,000 tons per annum of washed smalls, of which up to 60% is delivered by conveyor from Fishburn Colliery and the remainder from East Hetton and Trimdon Grange Collieries There are twenty blending bunkers, each of 200 tons capacity.

Mainly furnace coke is produced, there are good landsale facilities and capacity for stocking and reclaiming 100,000 tons of coke.

7 million cubic feet of purified gas per day, at a standard calorific value of 500 B.Th.U. per cubic foot, are compressed and supplied to the Northern Gas Board’s gas grid. The cost of purification (as at all the five N.C.B. coking plants in the Division supplying purified gas) is borne by the Gas Board.

Steam is raised in water tube boilers fired with coal and coke breeze and fitted with burners for gas or tar fuels. Water for the boilers and gas cooling is obtained from Fishburn Colliery. Part of the works effluent is utilised for coke quenching etc. and the remainder is treated in a plant of the continuous culture type.

Coking Plants, 1964

Disasters (5 or more killed)

None found.

Names of those killed at this colliery

No names found.

Collieries and Pits within 5 miles (8km)

a simulated map showing the immediate vicinity of Fishburn Coking Plant

list of collieries/pits etc. near to Fishburn Coking Plant

Gallery Images:

Credits

Sources:

1965 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1972 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1979 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1980 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1981 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1982 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
1983 Guide to the Coalfields published by the Colliery Guardian
NCB - Coal Products Division, Northern Region: Details of Coking and Briquetting Plants, June 1964
NCB - Durham Division: Details of Coking and Ancillary Plants, January 1961

Pictures:

Picture from NCB Information Booklet