Durham spurs has uploaded a picture of the upcast winder here being demolished and added the comment that it was "conservative butchery."
Now let's have the story straight - it was Conservative butchery that has all but destroyed the British coal industry, and closed Murton Colliery. But the upcast winding tower at the pit dated from about 1922 and was the oldest remaining Keope winder in the country. I wrote to the Dept. of Environment, as it was at the time, and the structure was protected by Listing as a building of special architectural or historic interest, which is why it remained after most of the site was demolished.
However, as reported in the Northern Echo at the time, it was Easington District Council that decided this old relic of the mining past was detrimental to the future image of the area, had the winding tower de-Listed, and destroyed, as the picture shows.
So perhaps a more appropriate comment might be "National and local political butchery."
😞

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"Detrimental to the future image of the area"? :curse:

Sounds about right for modern Britain: forget about our roots, forget what our strengths were, hide our heritage and employ consultants to come up with "blue sky thinking.

I could go on... 😉

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Chap I work with here used to work in the pit at Murton.

Chap I work with here used to work in the pit at Murton.

I showed him the photos http://www.aditnow.co.uk/album/Murton-Colliery-Coal-Mine-Archive-Album/  and his comments were:

"I recognise most of the places, especially the shafts and the fitting shop, did a few jobs in there on people’s cars on the night shift (locally known as tubloading or ‘tubs’) When I was there the West pit (updraught) winding gear had a major revamp to bring it up to industry standards and one of the workmen had a serious fall. I think he was killed. The West pit winding gear was unusual and quite rare, always known to us as a Kopee winder."