On Sunniside hill a lively breeze twirls wind turbine blades that dwarf terraced houses, once homes to miners’ families. Down in this sheltered valley, along the lane known locally as the Mile Lonnen, the still air is heavy with the fragrance of lilac, a hedgerow survivor from a long-lost garden. A century ago, downwind of what was then Emma pit at Pease’s West colliery, the prevailing odour here would have been a sulphurous whiff of coal and coke.
Until 1800 this valley, on the western edge of the Durham coalfield, was home to a scattered farming community, mining small outcrops for domestic use. Then came deep mining, then the railways, hauling coal away to fuel heavy industry, until the pits closed in the 1960s. Opencast mining took the last of it, 30 years ago, returning the valley to arable and grazing agriculture. Now this is a recovering landscape of gentle undulations, copses, hedges and drystone walls, crisscrossed by footpaths.
