A colliery operated at Ouston from at least as early as 1807 and was linked to a wooden railroad called the Beamish Wagonway to the south which transported coal to staithes on the Wear at Fatfield. This first pit was located near to what is now Drum Industrial Estate.
The Beamish Wagonway ran through this area from 1780 linking collieries to Fatfield and Chatershaugh on the Wear. It was joined by William Jolliffe’s Way, another wagonway linked to a colliery at Waldridge.
From around 1810 the newly built Ouston and Pelaw Waggonway (later called the Pelaw Main Railway) linked mines at Ouston and Urpeth to the Wear by another route and an offshoot of 1811 reached the Tyne with the assistance of various inclines and stationary steam engines and terminated at Pelaw Main Staithes near Bill Quay and Hebburn.
Pelaw Main on the Tyne was named from the Pelaw near Chester-le-Street. There were also staithes on the Tyne called Urpeth or Irpeth Staithes where ‘a coal drop’ was introduced to the region for the first time. Further pits opened at Ouston during the nineteenth century to make up Ouston Colliery and the colliery operated until 1959.
Taken from https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/pelton/