Hillside Cottage

Of course every paradise garden requires a home in which to store the seed trays, rakes, forks and trowels. Hillside Cottage is its name. It was part of a coalmine that opened in 1798 and closed in 1898. Formerly the Mine Manager's home and offices, it was sold into private hands by the mine owner, Lord Hylton in 1966.


Hillside Cottage 2009
Here is the building as it is today. Sadly, with trees having grown up in the century that has passed since the earlier mine photo was taken, it is impossible to photograph the left hand side of the property.


Upper Writhlington Colliery 1900
The key point of reference, here, is the porch to the left of chimney. Today, it is to the left of the front conservatory in the 2009 photograph. Careful scrutiny of the photograph shows the left of the property when it was a corrugated iron, single storey, boiler room, gardener's store and creamery. I do not know when the first floor was extended to a point now ends behind the colliery wheel. The mine wheel and chimney are long gone, although a neighbour has the capped mine shaft in his garden. He raised the cover and jumped up and down on the filling that was put in by the council. Thankfully, he did not disappear from sight - it is some 1,000 feet deep!