Black Callerton’s Stephenson Link (NZ174698)

© Copyright PhilThirkell and licensed for reuse 

under this CreativeCommons Licence.

The tiny hamlet of Black Callerton between Newcastle and Darras Hall holds a rather important place in the personal history of perhaps the greatest ever north-easterner, George Stephenson. Not only does it feature in the earliest years of the man’s illustrious career, but it also had quite a say in his family life, too.

There is, I am pleased to say, a commemorative plaque to mark the story, which, if filled out a bit, runs something like this…

The famous engineer and ‘Father of the Railways’ was born in 1781 at Wylam, a few miles to the south-west of Black Callerton. Illiterate until the age of eighteen, the self-taught genius first worked at Newburn colliery, before becoming a brakesman at Black Callerton (which involved controlling the pit’s winding gear) in 1801.

Rumour has it that whilst there he secretly courted a local farmer’s daughter called Betty Hindmarsh, whom he would meet in her orchard – and behind her parents’ back. All attempts to woo her failed, though – the girl’s father having none of it on account of our man’s lowly status. He thereafter made approaches to another local lass, Anne Henderson, before moving onto her sister, Fanny, who quickly became his wife. In 1802, the couple moved to Willington Quay, east of Newcastle.

Fanny died in 1806, leaving George with one surviving child, the famous Robert, born 1803. Whilst George built his career, young Robert was raised by a succession of neighbours and relatives. Eventually, though, George would marry again, and, strangely, the Black Callerton link would return to shape his life – for it was into the arms of his first love, Betty Hindmarsh, that the now hugely successful (and very wealthy) George would fall. They married (at Newburn) in 1820.

The marriage appears to have been a happy one, though they had no children. Betty took great care of her step-son, Robert, before her death in 1845. George still found time to marry for a third time shortly before his own death in 1848, but was buried alongside ‘Black Callerton Betty’ in Chesterfield.

Old Wearmouth Bridge (NZ397575)

  

It is difficult to believe that the River Wear at Sunderland was not bridged until the 1790s. Wearside’s growing wealth was, of course, based upon shipbuilding and the export of coal – and the tall-ships of the day needed lofty access to the river’s lower reaches. Any such bridge would have to arch high above the river, and stone – the commonly-used material of the day for such projects – would surely be too expensive for such an exercise. After all, the river valley was wide (250ft) and fairly deep at this point. But the need was becoming pressing by the end of the eighteenth century and something had to be done.

Sunderland’s current Wearmouth Bridge is familiar to us all nowadays, of course; but its predecessor, the extraordinary ‘Iron Bridge’, had an unlikely link with an internationally famous historical hero. Thomas Paine, author of the seminal The Rights of Man, is the chap in question. Paine’s writings would help shape the post-revolutionary development of both France and the United States in the 1780s and 90s, but he had many other interests, too – among them, inventing. And though it has been the cause of much controversy over the years, it seems that it was a design formed originally by Paine in 1787 for a bridge over the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania which eventually found physical form over the dear old River Wear.

The story is complex and unclear, but it is now generally accepted that the original ‘Iron Bridge’ at Sunderland, built during 1793-96, was based, at least loosely, on Paine’s original ‘American’ model. For reasons of finance, it seems, the US scheme never came to fruition, the half-finished, British-built bridge, finding itself being shipped north by its Rotherham constructors to form the basis of Sunderland’s brand-new industrial wonder.

Local MPs, Rowland Burdon and Ralph Milbanke, were the driving forces behind the scheme. After much research, both wood and stone were discarded as possible building materials; then, somehow, Paine’s iron-bridge design seems to have risen to the top of the pile. The world’s first-ever such effort, the famous ‘Ironbridge’ at Coalbrookdale, had been completed as recently as 1779 – but this famous gap measured only half of that to be bridged at Sunderland. Nevertheless, Burdon, Milbanke and their team (including, notably, engineer Thomas Wilson) bravely went for it, and gave the Walker Ironworks in Rotherham the go-ahead to start (or, perhaps, continue) the manufacturing process.

In the meantime, huge abutments were raised on the north and south banks of the Wear (completed in 1795), then two enormous wooden scaffolds were erected in the river to take the weight of the iron arches during construction. Six iron ribs were swiftly lifted into place to form the skeleton of the bridge, after which a further year was spent on applying the finishing touches. The new erection, at the time justly considered one of the wonders of the world and built at a cost of some £30-40,000, was finally opened on 9th August 1796. It was the largest single-span iron bridge on the planet, and over 80,000 folk turned up to witness the occasion.

Linking Bishopwearmouth and Monkwearmouth in this way proved to be the making of Sunderland, which flourished thereafter. It was a magnificence piece of engineering and much lauded in its day; but its design was flawed. As early as 1805, repairs were deemed necessary when the heat of the sun caused the cross-tubes which held the ribs together to loosen. And so the remedial work continued, until, in 1857, the famous Robert Stephenson took it upon himself to oversee extensive restructuring. The bridge was stripped back to its bare ribs, new iron-work added, and the abutments were raised to straighten out the lop-sidedness of the structure and to iron out the bridge’s distinctive hump. The result was a neater, simpler affair and bore the inscription, in Latin, “Do not despair, have faith in God.” It was re-opened in March 1859.

The volume of traffic over the fine old structure, however, continued to escalate, until it was decided to replace the bridge completely in the 1920s. But that, as they say, is another story.

Note:

The illustration shows a somewhat stylised engraving of the original Wearmouth Bridge, depicted prior to Robert Stephenson’s alterations. In reality, the bridge was a little lower and more elongated.

 

[ the above article is a slightly abridged version of the article which first appeared in Volume 2 of Aspects of North-East History – see www.lulu.com/historymick ]

Tyne Dock (NZ353655)

Between (the now filled in) Jarrow Slake and the western edge of South Shields sits a very distinct corner of Tyneside known as Tyne Dock. Named after the large dock which eats into the river’s southern bank, it is as easily identifiable on maps as almost any other geographical feature in the region. Which makes it a bit of shame that it has now almost gone, and is unlikely to feature in blue on the next edition of the OS map.

Incredibly, the Tyne Dock basin was dug out by hand in the 1850s – much of it by veterans returning from the Crimean War. As part of the general industrial surge of the day, it was deemed necessary to create births for the growing river traffic – and the new ‘marina’ could take, it was said, some 500 vessels. Opened in 1859, Robert Stephenson made the dock gates and William Armstrong made the engines to power them – and they were still in use until about 20 years ago. But it was the drive of Jarrow shipbuilder Charles Palmer which saw the dock’s construction brought to a conclusion. Keen to compete with the railways in the transportation of coal, the great yard was Palmer’s response – built to take mighty new colliers such as the John Bowes.

A proud community grew up around the dock, of course – much of it made famous by the novels of Catherine Cookson, who was born at 5 Leam Lane, Tyne Dock in 1906, just as the yard was approaching is peak. With the decline of the industry and the growth in the sheer size of visiting ships, the dock’s usefulness began to fall off.

Inevitably, the developers’ eyes began to turn to the possibility of reclaiming the watery 50 acre site. In the 1980s, much of the southern area of the dock was in-filled, reducing its size by a good two-thirds. Then, in November 2009, a decision was made to complete the process by using material dredged and dug from the river during the excavation of the second Tyne Tunnel. This process has now been completed, and only a small sliver of the old Tyne Dock remains – to be filled with spoil as and when it becomes available.

Then the area will be ready for new commercial development. That’s progress for you.

There’s a neat little piece here about Tyne Dock and its community.

Dial Cottage, West Moor (NZ274705)

Still standing on the Great Lime Road a little to the south of Killingworth, this splendid little relic of the past was home to George Stephenson and his young family during the early years of the nineteenth century. George was just starting out on his incredible career when he moved into the cottage – as a brakeman in charge of winding machinery at nearby West Moor Colliery – but was internationally famous by the time he relocated to Newcastle twenty years later.

When our man moved in, the cottage consisted of one room and a garret reached by a ladder. During his stay, though, he extended and converted the premises into a four-roomed house. The cottage has a sundial above the door, made by Stephenson himself, and an adjoining plaque which reads:-

George Stephenson. Engineer. Inventor of the Locomotive Engine. Lived in this cottage from 1805 to 1823; his first locomotive (Blücher) was built at the adjacent colliery wagon shops, and on July 25th 1814 was placed on the wagonway which crosses the road at the east end of this cottage.

George’s baby daughter and wife died during 1805-06, leaving George and his infant son as the only surviving family members. Dial Cottage therefore doubles its fame as the childhood home of the great Robert Stephenson…

 

East Coast Wonder (NT993533)

It’s a beauty, isn’t it? And a big ’un, to boot. It’s Berwick-upon-Tweed’s magnificent Royal Border Bridge, of course – the undoubted star of the East Coast London-Edinburgh rail line.

Begun in 1847, it was the very last section of the famous old route to be completed, being opened by Queen Victoria herself, no less, some three years later on 29th August 1850. Though the celebrated railway engineer, Robert Stephenson, claimed the glory for its design, he was little more than a figurehead in reality. Assistant engineer, Thomas Harrison, and resident engineer, George Barclay-Bruce, did most of the donkey-work – with contractors McKay and Blackstock responsible for pulling off the building feat itself to such aesthetic perfection.

And the construction process must have been a tricky one. The bridge was completed later than the rail line itself, the stone viaduct being built around and from within a temporary wooden affair. The foundations were driven down through some 12m of gravel to the bedrock using a state-of-the-art Nasmyth steam-powered pile-driver; and the stone piers – framing 28 giant arches – pushed the viaduct up to a dizzy 38m above the River Tweed. The bridge stretches a lengthy 658m (just over 0.4mile), and was later modified, width-wise, to accommodate an extra rail track. It is now a Grade I listed building.

No such protection was offered to old Berwick Castle, however, during those thrusting Victorian days. For the already ruinous landmark was pretty much obliterated during clearance work for the bridgehead and station, masonry being thoughtlessly and enthusiastically recycled during the bridge’s construction. It is thought that the very spot where King Edward I took oaths of allegiance from the Scots in 1296 lies beneath the present-day station platforms.