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General

Horden Colliery, which was sunk in 1900 mainly for the purpose of working undersea coal, is situated on the coast at the village of Horden, 15 miles south of Sunderland. It produces some 4,200 tons of coal per day from the Five Quarter, Main Coal, Low Main and Hutton Seams, giving employment to 2,711 persons underground and 862 on the surface. About half of the output is obtained from the Low Main Seam.

The mine is served by three shafts, the North and East Pits, both to the Hutton Seam at 1,196 feet, and the South Pit, 1,083 feet deep to the Low Main Seam. The 20-feet diameter North and South Pits are downcasts and both wind coal. The East Pit, 17 feet in diameter, is the main man-riding and upcast shaft, being equipped with an Aeroto 3-stage propeller type fan, 165 inches in diameter, driven by a 1,000 H.P. electric motor to produce 425,000 cubic feet of air per minute at a water gauge of 6 75 inches.

Management

The mine is in the No. 3 Area of the Durham Division of the National Coal Board, and the principal officials at the time of the explosion were as follows: -

Area General Manager		Mr. R. S. McLaren
Area Production Manager		Mr. E. W. Potts
Group Agent		Mr. J, T. Robson
Manager		Mr. E. C. Dodd
Undermanager (Low Main Seam)		Mr. J. Brown
Undermanagers (Other Seams)		Mr. T. Scarr and Mr. J. R. Morton

Mr. Dodd had been appointed manager on the 10th March, 1953, on a temporary basis to cover a period of one month during the absence on leave of the manager, Mr. S. Wilson.

Safety Lamps

There is no previous history of explosion at the mine. While the measures are not particularly gassy, firedamp is a hazard in all seams. Safety lamps have always been used throughout the mine. Those in general use are Patterson S.S. 1, Ceag A. 7 and Edison KI/PMX electric cap lamps, and Patterson H.C.P. flame lamps. The deputies also carry Patterson G.T.L. 9 flame lamps and senior officials Patterson M.I.G. for gas testing purposes. Selected workmen use Patterson A. 1 Flame Lamps as detectors; automatic detectors, not being legally required, are not in use.

The Low Main Seam

The explosion occurred in the undersea workings of this seam in the North East 5 District Plough Face, commonly called the Plough Face, which name I shall use throughout this Report.

This seam, which has a hard seggar floor, varies between 4½ and 5½ feet in thickness but in the Plough Face the bottom 14 - 18 inches, being of a poor quality, are left unworked. The seam has a volatile matter content on an ash free basis of 36 per cent., and produces a good gas and steam coal. Variations also occur in the immediate roof due to the occasional intrusion of shale between the coal and its normal sandstone cover, and such was the case in the above district where a bed of shale about 30 feet thick was present. It has an average dip of 1 in 42 to the east and has been worked extensively and continuously since 1910 by a combination of bord and pillar and longwall methods, the latter comprising machine-cut hand-filled conveyor faces, either advancing or retreating.