Black Boy Colliery (Gurney Pit) is labelled on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857. The pit was sited at the eastern end of the Black Boy Railway incline. The pit is marked as disused on the 1938-1950 edition. It has since been reclaimed and is now a field/woodland plantation.

NEHL - The Gurney pit was one of about half a dozen within a few square miles of Shildon, with the land exploited to the fullest extent. Even over the Dene Beck was South Durham Colliery, and beyond the Gurney Villas was Auckland Park Colliery which was formerly the Black Boy Machine Pit. Eldon Colliery (John Henry Pit was a couple hundred metres to the east.

The pit was opened around 1830 by Nicholas Wood, however there are references to a Black Boy Main Colliery as early as 1819. In 1827 a pit was referred to as the Old Black Boy Colliery near Bishop Auckland so there is potential for this to be slightly older. It was connected to the Black Boy Railway, alongside a brickworks, with the Stockton and Darlington Railway into Shildon before the Shildon Tunnel was excavated. Pitmen were housed in the Gurney Villas which partly still exist and were in situ in the 1850s. Around 10 of them remain. Further housing was constructed on the main lane near the pit pond, and a second shaft was opened by the 1890s too.

The site is now farmland, and upon my visit was occupied by horses.

"There are two collieries here [Coundon Grange township], the Auckland park and Black Boy. At the former the "Harvey" and Brockwell seams are wrought : the "Harvey," 3 ft. 8 inches, at a depth of 110 fathoms ; the Brockwell, 4 ft. 9 in., at a depth of 150 fathoms. There are 430 ovens, which convert the whole of the output into coke, which is all used at their [Bolckow, Vaughan & Co.] own ironworks. The waste gas from these ovens is used to heat the boiler. These pits are ventilated by a large fan, 45 ft. diameter. The output from the two seams amounts to 1500 tons per day. Here is also a firebrick works, and the coking coal is washed by patent machinery. The number of men and boys employed here is 1200. The Black Boy Pit is situated about a mile from Auckland Park ; here the Five Quarter seam and the main coal is worked, the former at a depth of 42 fathoms, and is 5 ft. thick, nd the latter 4 ft. 6 in. thick, at a depth of 60 fathoms, producing 450 tons per day, giving employment to 410 men and boys. The Black Boy branch of the Stockton and Darlington railway extends into this township."

Whellan's 1894 Directory of County Durham (via Durham Mining Museum)