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Site of the shaft at Bobgins Burn

Located in the Causey Gill, not far from the famous Arch, this was the site of a small shaft in the coalmining days. The shaft gave access to a pumping engine which drained some of the seams of the nearbye colliery at East Tanfield into the Causey Burn. It didn't warrant a winding engine or a cage, the men who maintained the pump went up and down on ladders. When my late father was a deputy at East Tanfield, this shaft was part of his district and I can remember as a boy in the fifties coming here with him at weekends to make sure all was in order. The pump men had a little cabin beside the shaft and were a very friendly bunch.