Silksworth, Sunderland
Silksworth is a small village located in Sunderland just adjacent to Tunstall, Farrington and Gilley Law. It is known locally as Silky. It has a history of coal mining going back 100 years.
In 1879 the population had risen hugely as it was realised that the area had very rich coal reserves and so numerous collieries were made to extract the coal and many people moved to work in the mines. Migrants came from as far as America and Germany as well as Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall.
The mine owner Lord Londonderry provided both work and housing for the newly arriving coal miners, although life would have been hard for miners in that time. The work was dirty and dangerous and very physically demanding in 1971 it was closed which had a severe impact on the economy as both business and people both relied heavily on the coal mining industry. Today there is nothing left of the old Colliery and it has been converted into the Silksworth Sports Complex.
The Silksworth Sports Complex has the largest north-east artificial ski slope and activity centre in all of England. At the base of the Ski slope there is a huge funnel shaped concrete structure which used to be part of the colliery washery, this is the only building left from the old colliery.
Around the 1990’s one of the mines that was located underneath a lake collapsed and totally drained the lake, the entire area had to be closed off for months whilst the it was repaired.