In 1839 Wingate Grange Colliery was begun with the sinking of the Lord Pit by Lord Howden and Partners. The shaft was sunk that year to work the Hutton Seam, boring below this also proved the presence of the Harvey Seam. These were two of the seven seams worked from Lord Pit and Lady Pit between 1839 and the colliery's closure in 1962. At its height, in 1914, the colliery employed 1486 people working the Hutton, Harvey, Low Main and Main coal seams, the coal was shipped to London from Hartlepool. Wingate Grange was owned in 1914 by the Wingate Grange Coal Co. who had acquired it from Lord Howden. It later passed to the Wingate Coal Co. and was owned by the National Coal Board (NCB) when it closed in 1962.

The 1st Edition of the Ordnance Survey map c.1856 shows Wingate Grange Colliery covering a large area to the south-west of the town of Wingate. Also shown is the rail network that served the colliery, a branch of the Hartlepool Railway begun c.1837, terraced housing and a colliery school.

This was also the site of the Wingate Grange Colliery disaster. An explosion led to the deaths of 26 miners on the 14th October. There is a fascinating piece on the disaster here: http://www.dmm.org.uk/pitwork/html/wingate.htm