Whether this investment took place is not known. A few days after the meeting, on 30 March, there was a catastrophic inrush of water into another of the company’s collieries: Montagu Main, near Scotswood. Thirty-eight men were killed. Montagu Main was a much larger undertaking than Fourstones, and therefore much more important to the company. Therefore, it seems likely that any money intended for Fourstones was diverted to Montagu Main in an endeavour to re-start production there.

 The situation at Fourstones Colliery was discussed fully during the directors’ meeting held on 11 January 1926. The directors were told that ‘the cost of working the pit so heavy and the price of coal was so low … that the only plan would be to close the colliery’. However, ‘the directors loathe to abandon the place’, presumably because this was where the late William Benson had started the business way back in the Nineteenth Century. Sadly, sentiment paid no bills; during the meeting held on  29 June 1926,  the  decision  was  made  that Fourstones Colliery would close permanently. A letter would be sent terminating the lease of the royalty. Coal production had evidently ceased by the time of the directors’ meeting on 14 October 1926, as it was resolved that the colliery employees would no longer be supplied with free coal as the company no longer produced coal in the district. Employees living in the company’s houses would be asked to vacate or to pay an economic rent once the General Strike was over. (The strike had begun on 3 May, and had ended for all but the miners on 13 May.)

 After the closure of Fourstones Colliery, the quarries continued to work until circa 1940 - 1942, when they were closed also. They have been worked off and on since, but the output has been despatched by road rather than the via the waggonway and the Newcastle & Carlisle.

Endnote:
(1) See Minute Book, William Benson & Son Limited, 1915 – 1942 [NRO 768/4/1].

Acknowledgement: This article was first published in the North Eastern Express, the quarterly Journal of the North Eastern Railway Association. www.ner.org.uk