Geograph - photograph every grid square

This stands at the entrance to Beamish Open Air Museum.
These wooden coal wagons were once a common sight in the Great Northern Coalfield (as it was known). Known as chaldrons, or black wagons, they carried coal from collieries to the coast or riverside, for export down the coast to London.
A chaldron (also chauldron or chalder) was a dry English measure of volume, not a weight, mostly used for coal; the word itself is an obsolete spelling of cauldron. It was used from the 13th century until 1963 when it was abolished by the Weights and Measures Act. (Source: Wikipedia)