	Hawthorn Coking Plant	Index	Hawthorn Coking Plant

Hawthorn Coking Plant

also known as Murton Coking Plant

Location:	nr. Murton 7½ miles [12 km] S of Sunderland
Map Ref:	(Sheet 88) NZ390458, 54° 48' 20" N, 1° 23' 36" W
Opened:
Closed:
Output:	1961 - Coke. (250,000 tons)
	1964 - Coke. (230,000 tons)
	1965 - Coke.
	1972 - Coke.
	1979 - Coke.
	1980 - Coke.
	1981 - Coke.
	1982 - Coke.
	1983 - Coke.
Employment:	1961 - 212
	1964 - 237

Description

The Hawthorn plant, built in 1958 to replace old works at Horden and Shotton, consists of 50 Woodall-Duckham underject compound silica ovens, with provision for lean gas firing.

When operating at a coking time of 20 hours, the plant has a capacity of 365,000 tons per annum of washed smalls from the adjacent Hawthorn shaft and washery. There are eight blending bunkers, each of 400 tons capacity and crushed coke breeze is added to improve coke quality.

Furnace and industrial coke is produced and there are good stocking and reclaiming facilities for 150,000 tons of coke and a landsale for coke nuts.

Ammonia is recovered as concentrated liquor. Tar is sent to the Ness tar distillation plants at Norwood and Brancepeth for the production of electrode pitch. Benzole refining equipment is being transferred to Hawthorn from closed refineries and is being equipped with centralised control equipment.

Washery middlings, inferior coal, coke breeze and gas (with provision for the use of tar fuel) are used for raising steam at 615 p.s.i., power for the coking plant being generated by a pass-out turbo alternator.

7 million cubic feet of purified gas per day, including up to 1 million cubic feet released by the use of methane from the Easington and Horden Collieries for oven heating, at a standard calorific value of 500 B.Th.U. per cubic foot, are compressed and sold to the Northern Gas Board’s gas grid.

Effluents not absorbed on the works are disposed of via the Council sewer.

The main feature of the Hawthorn plant is the labour saving centralised control of coal handling, coke screening (including the marshalling and weighing of wagons) and by-product plant.

Coking Plants, 1964

Disasters (5 or more killed)

None found.

Names of those killed at this colliery

Please note that this collection of names is by no means complete!

						Walton, William, 21 Dec 1970, aged 56, Buried: St. Saviour's Churchyard, Shotton Colliery

						1 name found

If you know of any fatalities missing from the above list then please contact us with the details and we will add them to our database.

Those names marked with , have a web page providing individual details of the accident, the page may also include a photograph of the deceased. Click on the symbol next to the name to see the web page.

Collieries and Pits within 5 miles (8km)

a simulated map showing the immediate vicinity of Hawthorn Coking Plant

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

Gallery Images:

The pusher side of the oven batteries with the pusher machine and ovens coal bunker

The coal handling, blending and crush plant

The ground floor of the blending bunkers showing the constant weight feeders and belt conveyor

The blending bunkers with the coal conveyors from the washery

A view across the top of the oven batteries looking towards the ovens coal bunker

The oven basement showing the coke oven fuel gas piping

The reversing valves in the coke side alleyway

The battery control room showing the reversing machine

The coke quenching station with the oven batteries in the background

A general view of the plant from the coke screening station end

Flow diagram of the coke handling, screening and storage plant

A view of the rail loading side of the coke screening plant

The coke weighers in the coke handling plant control room

The coke handling plant control room. The 'domestic coke' boom loader can be seen outside

The W-D Gamma Interlock coke pushing control system

The armchair control unit on the pusher machine

Close-up view of a coke discharge. At the top of the picture can be seen the transmitter unit of th

The producer gas plant showing the gas scrubber on the right

General view of the byproduct plant showing the benzole scrubbers and secondary cooler, with the el

The central byproduct plant building with the byproduct and benzole recovery plants beyond

The liquor coolers and oil/water heat exchangers in front of the benzole scrubbers

The two motor-driven gas boosters and, in the foreground, the steam-driven gas booster

General view of the pump room showing the liquor flushing and wash oil circulating pumps, etc.

General view of the byproduct plant with the crude benzole plant in the foreground

The wash oil still and vapour/oil heat exchangers

General view of the byproduct recovery plant

The concentrated ammonia liquor plant — the liquor still and dissociator

The pusher side of the oven batteries and the central byproduct plant building

The byproduct and benzole plants control panel with the annunciator board on the left

The back of the byproduct and benzole plants control panel

The byproduct and benzole plants control panel with the budgetary control board on the right

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
Headstone(s) in St. Saviour's Churchyard, Shotton
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