Washhouse Shower Side

The washhouse shower side at Elrington Colliery is one of the more direct records the site holds of the men who worked it. Underground miners at Elrington came up from the Main Greta Seam 1,190 ft below the surface carrying coal dust in their skin, their hair, the creases of their hands. The washhouse was where that changed. The shower side of the building retains its cubicles and fittings, the tiled surfaces carrying the wear of more than three decades of daily use across the mine's operational life. Elrington Colliery was developed by BHP Collieries Proprietary Limited, with principal shareholders Broken Hill Pty. Company Ltd. and Hebburn Limited. The site was established specifically to supply coking coal to BHP's Newcastle steelworks. Two concrete-lined shafts, each 18 ft in diameter, were sunk to reach the Main Greta Seam at depth. Coal production commenced in 1930. The mine was designed with a planned output of 3,000 tonnes per day, an ambition it never achieved. In practice, Elrington produced approximately 1,500 tons per day on average in 1950, roughly half of what BHP had planned when it sank the shafts. The workforce the washhouse served was modest in scale relative to those ambitions. At the time of closure in December 1962, approximately 90 men were affected. BHP cited persistent operating losses as the reason for shutting the mine. Large reserves of coal remained in the seam. The Elrington railway branch, which had carried coal to the South Maitland Railway network and on to Newcastle port, was dismantled in 1963. This photograph was made in 2017, more than 50 years after the last shift came up from underground. The fittings are still there. The cubicle walls are still standing. What the building held, the noise and steam of men cleaning up after a day in the coal, is gone, but the structure that held it remains.