Between two and three o'clock in the morning of Tuesday 30th May 1826 chinks of light could be seen in the windows of the cottages in the Stargate area as the miners stirred, lit their candles and prepared for an early shift at the pit. Some would prepare themselves carefully and quietly So as not to waken other members of the family who were not needed in the pit until later in the day. Others would be anxious to ensure that brothers, sons and fathers were also awake and about, as family groups often worked together, boys in particular often worked on the same shifts as their fathers, albeit at different jobs. Perhaps a father who was a hewer would be taking a young son in to work as a trap boy or an older son to be a putter. Whatever their precise jobs, all would have to get up at that unearthly hour, ready for a three o'clock start.

On this particular morning there would be many w ho would find it more difficult than usual to rise from their beds. The pit had not worked since the previous Friday and the miners' muscles had had three days in which to relax and soften. As there was no pit village as such at this time, it was unlikely that the miners would have had the services of a "knocker-up" as was often the case later in the nineteenth century. Will-power and the fear of missing a shift's pay would alone have had to drive the men on,

Not everything connected with the pit had been idle over the weekend however, for the furnace which induced the draught through the workings would have been tended regardless of whether or not the pit was actually being worked. Every man knew that parts of the pit were "fiery", that is the working of coal caused Methane Gas, or "Firedamp", to be produced and that, if this was allowed to collect and then come into contact with a naked flame, an explosion could occur Such an incident, in the confined space a coal mine, would have devastating effects.

The key to safety was recognised as being good ventilation and to this end the furnace was kept burning day and night inducing a draught of fresh air down one side of the shaft and then in a zig-zag course through all the workings, emerging up the other side of the same shaft. The vertical division of the shaft into two sections was effected by a wooden partition and other partitions in the workings served to ensure the air travelled to every part of the pit. These partitions were called brattices and, wherever it was necessary for miners on their way to or from their working places, or for putters with their ponies to pass through them a trap door was provided, worked by a trap boy who was usually one of the youngest employees of the pit, often only six years old.

Great pains had always been taken at Stargate with the ventilation and, in spite of occasional incidents such as the fatal explosion of 1815, there seems to have been a sense of security around a false sense as events were to prove. Davy lamps had been used in the pit in the past and it was generally recognised throughout the coalfield that a Davy, or some thing similar, such as a Geordy lamp, was essential for working gassy seams. Nevertheless the recent practice in Stargate had been to trust the ventilation and use nothing more complicated than the simple candle. Candles, which the miners would have to provide themselves, out of their wages, had proved reasonably safe in the past and no-one expected any trouble that morning.

James Hall, the viewer, certainly did not expect trouble. True, he had not actually been in the pit himself for about a fortnight, but he had daily reports from his under-viewers. These had left him satisfied that the pit was in excellent condition and "uncommonly well ventilated".

As long as the furnace was kept burning the ventilation of the pit would be adequate. Everyone knew that, and everyone also knew that the furnace had been burning ever since Friday, so there was nothing to worry about. No-one apparently gave a thought to what might happen if a fall of stone in some remote part of the old workings were to block an airway and allow gas to accumulate. No-one gave a thought to it but that, or something similar, is what must have happened and some fifty men and boys were now carrying naked candle flames into an explosive mixture of Methane and Air.

Because of the way the miners rode the rope down the shaft, they would arrive at the shaft bottom one at a time. It would be thus singly, or at most in small groups, that they would make their way into the Brockwell seam workings east of the shaft.

Although it is recorded that the workings were east of the shaft, they could not have extended very far in that direction as the boundary of the Stella Freehold Estate — outside the Grand Lease — would soon have been reached. In a south-easterly direction the ninety fathom dyke, a major geological barrier, would have rendered any extensive working impractical, but to the north-east there was plenty of untouched Grand Lease coal and that is probably where the workings were.

The long line of men stretched right through the Brockwell seam workings, such that, as the first men drew near to their workplaces amongst the "bord and pillar" workings then used, the last were still riding the rope down the shaft. It was three o'clock.

That was when the explosion happened, when everyone was in either the main tunnels or the shaft, and hardly anyone had any shelter to deflect the blast. That blast swept back effortlessly through the workings, tossing aside and burning brattices, men, boys, ponies and all else that lay in its way. As it focussed on the shaft it raced up, carrying with it more brattices, ropes, corves and men, finally erupting out of the mouth of the pit with a mighty roar which told the local inhabitants only too clearly what had happened. Behind it the explosion left chaos. Everything which could be torn loose had been blown about and burned, In several places the roof had collapsed and the bodies of men, boys and horses were everywhere. Of the fifty or so miners that had descended to work, over thirty were dead, about a dozen were injured most of them seriously, and only four or five remained unharmed. For the survivors there was another danger to be faced; apart from the prospect of being buried alive by roof falls there was the "after-damp", deadly choking gases which follow an explosion and can quietly kill any man unlucky enough to be caught up in them.

No doubt local people, woken by the noise, would soon rush to the shaft top to find out what had happened and to see whether anything could be done to help. It must have been a terrible scene which greeted them. Corves full of coals which had been waiting at the shaft bottom since Friday had been blown right up the shaft and with them had come broken brattices, ropes and some dead ponies. Three men and a boy, who had been in the act of descending the shaft at the time of the explosion, were also blown right out of it, as was one man, John Grey, who had actually reached the bottom. Grey and two others, Thomas Stokoe and his 15 year old son Matthew, were killed outright, but, miraculously the other two, although injured, were expected to recover. The scene at the shaft top was described in the diary of a Winlaton man, in the flowery style of the day:

Rescue work would begin immediately and we can be sure that there would be no shortage of experienced miners volunteering to help. It soon became apparent, however that there were precious few alive to be rescued amid the underground chaos which once was Stargate Pit. The job quickly resolved itself into one of bringing out the bodies, a job which was seriously hampered by roof falls. Slow but steady progress was made throughout the Tuesday and Wednesday and on the Thursday, June 1st, twenty-seven of the victims were buried in Ryton Churchyard. A further six burials took place on Friday 2nd June and four more on Saturday 3rd June, a total of thirty-seven miners (nineteen men and eighteen boys). As it was stated on the Monday evening, 5th June, that thirty-eight had died, it seems likely that by then Matthew Newton, a 41 year old man who had survived the explosion but had been badly injured, had also died, Matthew Newton was buried at Ryton on Wednesday 7th June. Only two of the victims are commemorated today on a gravestone in Ryton Churchyard. These are John and Thomas Robson, two brothers whose names appear in their family gravestone, to the north of the main path, The other thirty-six victims all have unmarked graves.