Journal entry – John Grey – 23 Nov 1833

Saturday 23rd November



After dispatching business in the Office & writing to Mr Johnson on the claims for allowances from the Rail Way, made to the Dilston Tenants, which ought now to be repaid to the Hospital, I rode to see the work at the Embankment in Widehaugh and then proceeded through the Farms of Highwood and Westwood, to those of Fourstones to examine some Wears which Mr Hunt had been directed to improve, to prevent the inroads made by the Tyne upon the Haugh there & to preserve a Wall which it was likely to undermine, which I found done in a satisfactory manner.  I then went to the Colliery & examined the Lease in the Tenants possession, of which there is no copy in this Office, & having acquainted myself with the covenants, proceeded to look at the Shaft to which they propose to remove their workings & to make myself acquainted with the points from which the Coal has been wrought & those in which it still remains.  No regular plans exist of the working of this Seam, which is to be regretted, & if a professional man were employed to examine it, I think it would be well to have the workings laid down in an intelligible form, & to cause the Lessees to continue adding to it as they advance.   I could not go down to see the Mine today, for the Men had left their work, being Saturday, rather early, but shall take some opportunity of doing so.  It is an objection to the Shaft they are moving to, that it is very near to Mr Snowballs Stockyard, so that Carters coming at night, might may [sic] make free with his Oat Sheaves and Hay, or may be suspected of doing so, & that there is without care danger of fire.  This the Lessee promises to guard against, by allowing no Smithy at the place and he also engages to insure the Stockyard.  I have before remarked that the three farms at Fourstones are in as creditable a state of cultivation as any on the Hospitals property in this part of the County, but still the abominable treatment of the hedges common to the country prevails, of which many of them are entirely destroyed.