The house dwelling built and let by the mine owners were normally small terraced builds with home 'back to back' to each other, all in close proximity .
Without any real communication as such, the town folk relied on word of of mouth for any news.
if there was an accident in the mine it might take a while until all the people were aware of it,
but the miners wives had devised a 'code'.
When an accident had occurred the first person to hear the news would scrape an implement across the fire grate, which resounded through the walls to the neighbour, they would repeat the
process and so on ,from next neighbour to next, this action was a quicker ways to spread the news.