Giants are deeply woven into the cultural and imaginative fabric of the North East. In the spring of 1886, miners at the Saint Pit in Delves Lane, Consett, made a startling discovery. Buried deep within the Busty seam – at a depth of twenty fathoms (approximately 120 feet) – and surrounded by waste rock known locally as “rammel,” they unearthed a stone formation in the unmistakable shape of a human figure. It was quickly dubbed the “Consett Giant.”
A PETRIFIED GIANT FOUND AT CONSETT
Considerable surprise has been experienced amongst the miners employed at Saint Pit, Con sett, by the discovery amongst the “rammel” at the top of the Busty seam, of a stone in the form of a human being. One portion consists apparently of a part of the body, and also the upper part of the two legs of this giant, and measure seven feet one inch in length, and are evidently portions of a body measuring from nine to ten feet high. The remaining portions are expected to be unearthed shortly. The petrified body was found at a depth of twenty fathoms from the surface. Shields Daily News Friday 16 April 1886
The Saint Pit, operated by the Consett Iron Company, named from the number of Latter-day Saints – then locally referred to as “Mormonites” – who were employed there when the shaft was first sunk around 1847. Active until 1913, the pit supplied coal and fire clay to fuel Consett’s iron and steel production.
This wasn’t the first time the region had flirted with tales of giants. In 1660, flooding along the River Cor near Corbridge exposed what was believed to be a giant human skeleton. A large bone, thought to be a rib, was displayed for years at the Old George Inn in Newcastle upon Tyne before being acquired by the Keswick Museum, where it was exhibited as the rib of the legendary giant Cor. Other parts were reportedly held by the Earl of Derwentwater.
The most vivid literary portrayal of northern giants appears in Derwent; an Ode, a lyrical poem published in 1787 by Dr. John Carr. In just four of its forty verses, Carr introduced the titanic figures Cor, Con, and Ben—mythical giants said to have roamed the local landscape and whose names live on in Corbridge, Consett, and Benfieldside.
In elder times giants uprear’d
Their heads, and affronted the skies;
Cor, Ben, Con, terriffic appear’d,
With names of anomalous size.
A hammer in common they had,
And the use of it easy to all;
Each whistled, each brother was glad
To throw it three leagues at his call.
When Con was approaching his end,
Deaf, blind, and beginning to rave,
With a ploughman he begg’d as a friend
To converse at the mouth of his cave.
This ploughman, as prudent men do,
Held his plough-share, himself to escape;
Blind Con pinch’d his plough-share in two
And pronounc’d it the arm of an ape.
From the poetic titans of Dr. John Carr’s ode to the petrified figure found in the depths of the Saint Pit, these stories remind us that myth and memory often walk hand in hand.
Next month, I shall journey deeper into the mists of myth to uncover the tale of the Muggleswick Giant — another towering figure in the Derwent valley.
Story by Paul Heatherington
