Growth of a Pit Town (NZ388472)

So many of the North-East’s towns of today began life as tiny hamlets at the dawn of the nineteenth century, only to be transformed as pits were sunk and workers and their families came flooding in.  Utterly typical of this dramatic metamorphosis is that which occurred at Murton, Co.Durham…

Population

1801: 75

1811: 71

1821: 72

1831: 98

First pit sunk 1838

1841: 521

Coalmining begins 1843

1851: 1,387

1861: 2,104

1871: 3,017

1881: 4,710

1891: 5,052

1901: 6,514

Present: c.7,300

Another interesting comparison is the Tithe map of 1777:

... with the present-day layout here (which I can’t reproduce for reasons of copyright).

Astonishing.

And now all the pits, without exception, have gone.

[1777 map taken from www.murtonheritagesociety.co.uk]