Bigges Main

A Tyneside colliery, sunk in 1785, whose waggonway the excavated Willington Waggonway served — Richard Carlton and Alan Williams's 2018 excavation report ties the site's main-line construction to "the Bigges Main pit, sunk in 1785," and the name is used near-interchangeably with "Willington Waggonway" in the sources this session, without being disambiguated as its own site.

Matters to this vault first as the anchor of the "1785" date underneath claim-willington-1785-siding-measured-4ft8-5in-same-gauge-as-main-line and claim-willington-report-main-line-stated-four-foot-eight-inch-no-half-inch — and second because of an unresolved naming collision: claim-two-independent-secondary-accounts-agree-no-standard-wagonway-gauge-existed, from an earlier and unrelated capture, lists a "Bigges Main, Kenton and Coxlodge" wagonway (via Bertram Baxter's survey, as rendered by two secondary sources that disagree with each other) at 5 ft 7½ in or 4 ft 7½ in — a much wider gauge than the ~4 ft 8 in this session's primary excavation report gives for Bigges Main's own waggonway. Whether these are the same physical line at different dates, two distinct lines sharing a colliery name, or a garbled secondary figure is not established by anything read so far.

References

• claim-willington-1785-siding-measured-4ft8-5in-same-gauge-as-main-line

• claim-willington-report-main-line-stated-four-foot-eight-inch-no-half-inch

• claim-two-independent-secondary-accounts-agree-no-standard-wagonway-gauge-existed — the conflicting Baxter-derived figure, not yet reconciled

• claim-gibson-1773-diary-documents-willington-waggonway-activity-predating-1785

• 2026-09-15: The same excavation report quotes a diary entry from waggonway engineer William Gibson dated 23 August 1773 — "designed a branch of Waggonway from the Engine Pit to join the partnership way" — documenting waggonway activity "at Willington" twelve years before the 1785 sinking date this page's cluster is anchored to. Not yet reconciled with the 1785 date; recorded as an open complication, not investigated further. (claim-gibson-1773-diary-documents-willington-waggonway-activity-predating-1785)