Abel Chapman of Houxty (NY856784)

Houxty is a large-ish residence which sits on the west bank of the River North Tyne about a mile upstream from Wark. Its supreme claim to fame is that it was the home of well-known naturalist Abel Chapman for the last 30+ years of his life. Chapman, well-educated and widely travelled, was one of those great conundrums of his age: both a keen game hunter and an enthusiastic protector of the natural world.

Chapman was born in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, in 1851, into a fairly well-to-do family with a long and strong interest in the very areas in which Abel was to excel. He spent his early years learning field-craft in the wilds of Northumberland, where he quickly developed a love of the outdoors. He attended Rugby School, then went into his father’s brewery business (Lambton’s) which enabled him to begin his overseas travels. As the years passed, he journeyed ever more widely, to take in hunting trips to, most notably and initially, Scandinavia and Spain. He co-wrote a book entitled Wild Norway concerning the former, and helped create a nature reserve in the latter – as well as (in Spain) discovering Europe's major breeding ground for the flamingo and saving the Spanish Ibex from extinction. Two books on his Spanish adventures followed.

After the family business was sold in 1897, he moved to Houxty in the North Tyne valley where he set about creating his own little nature reserve around his new home. When he moved in in 1898 it was a dilapidated sheep farm, but Chapman loved the spot on account of it being the haunt of blackcock. He rebuilt the house and laid out and managed the gardens, plantations and moorland thereabouts to attract wildlife which he could then study – a set-up which brought many other naturalists to his little estate, as well as a troop of boy scouts who visited him as part of the very first Baden-Powell scouting camp in 1908 who were staying a few miles away (see here).

Chapman later developed an interest in South Africa, his experiences there leading him to help form the early incarnation of their still-existing Kruger National Park. He continued to travel abroad, paradoxically both hunting and preserving wherever he went, wrote many works on his subject matter, and eventually died at Houxty in 1929, aged 77. His last words were “Take care of Dash,” his favourite spaniel.

During his hunting days Chapman amassed many wildlife specimens, which now lie scattered across natural history collections in London, Newcastle and his native Sunderland.

Bob Stokoe of Mickley (c.NZ075621)

Mickley, Northumberland, is not a very large village. It is known, historically, as the birthplace of the famous engraver, Thomas Bewick (at nearby Cherryburn Farm); but should, perhaps, be even better known for spawning one of the most celebrated football figures the region has ever produced: Bob Stokoe.

The man is a Sunderland legend, of course, having managed the Wearsiders to that most unexpected FA Cup Final victory over the then mighty Leeds United in 1973. But he is closely linked with Newcastle United, too, having won the cup with the black ‘n’ whites as a player in 1955. In between these two momentous occasions he managed a string of lower league clubs with a varying degree of success.

Robert Stokoe was born at Mickley on 21^st September 1930 into a typical North-East mining community – in fact he was the son of a miner. He joined Newcastle United in 1947 as an apprentice, scored on his debut in 1950, and went on to play 288 matches for the club – mainly at centre-half, and punctuated by that 3-1 Cup Final win over Man City in 1955. He left for Bury in 1960, joining initially as player-manager, then concentrating on management.

He remained at Bury for five years – famously refusing a bribe, he claimed, from Leeds manager Don Revie to ‘throw’ a match. He then managed Charlton, Rochdale, Carlisle and Blackpool, before quietly taking charge at Sunderland in 1972. Then a second tier club, they shocked the football world by beating the imperious Leeds United 1-0 in the ’73 Cup Final – and a stunned nation watched Stokoe dash across the Wembley turf on the final whistle adorned in raincoat and trilby to embrace match hero, ‘keeper Jim Montgomery.

After he left Sunderland in 1976, he moved in and out of various posts over the following decade – and, astonishingly, was never sacked at any of the twelve clubs he managed. He retired in 1987 – ironically overseeing Sunderland’s only ever relegation to the third tier of English football.

He died in Hartlepool in 2004, aged 73.

Thomas Wright & Westerton Tower (NZ223341 & NZ240310)

© Copyright Hugh Mortimer and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Thomas Wright was born in the little village of Byers Green, near Spennymoor, in 1711. He disappeared for the duration of his working, adult life, before returning to the area in his retirement, where he set about building the still-existing Westerton Tower. He died before it was completed, meaning that his planned observatory became little more than a folly adorning the Durham landscape.

Wright had his fingers in a lot of pies. He was schooled in Bishop Auckland, before being apprenticed to a clockmaker in the town. In his working life he began as a teacher of mathematics and navigation at his own school in Sunderland in the 1730s, before moving to London to work for several wealthy patrons. He dabbled in garden design, was a bit of an architect and designed scientific instruments – famously building a huge working model of the solar system (an orrery) for one of his clients. Indeed, Wright is best remembered as an astronomer.

Despite what you may have read elsewhere, it was Thomas Wright who first speculated that the Milky Way was most likely a flat disc of stars, and that the blurry blobs of light we see in the night sky (nebulae) are actually distant galaxies. These ideas are often attributed to the brilliant German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, but they first appeared in Wright’s An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe in 1750. He also helpfully (and correctly) postulated Earth and humankind’s relative insignificance in the ‘grand scheme of things’, and was the first man to coin the phrase ‘galaxy’ to describe a large group of stars.

Retirement sent him back to his homeland in Co.Durham, where he set about work on his pretty little observatory (though construction may have begun earlier in his lifetime). His death in 1786 preceded the tower’s completion, so his planned observatory rather unfairly became a mere folly. It has been used, periodically, as a reading room and more recently as council offices. A commemorative plaque was placed there by Durham University in 1950 to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the publication of his famous treatise.

Colin Milburn – An Indomitable Spirit (NZ172569)

The mighty Colin Milburn is perhaps the biggest name to come out of Burnopfield – in more ways than one. At 18 stone, his size was both the making of him and, perhaps, his downfall. One thing’s for sure: he was a supremely talented cricketer, appearing in a ludicrously paltry nine test matches for England.

‘Ollie’ was born in October 1941, and followed his sportingly talented father into cricket at an early age. He played in local leagues, before progressing into the Durham team (who were then a minor county) at 17 – and scored what was described as a ‘dynamic century’ against the touring Indians at Sunderland in 1959. By the summer of 1960 he was playing for Northamptonshire at first-class level, with his forceful batting, useful bowling and famous convivial personality. He was mooted several times for an England call up during the early ‘60s, but had to wait until 1966 for his international debut against the West Indies. A promising series (including scores of 94 and 126 not out) ended in disappointment when he was dropped for the final test, supposedly due to his lack of mobility in the field. It was not the last time he would be messed about by the selectors.

After being voted one of Wisden’s ‘Cricketers of the Year’ in 1967, he spent a varied few years playing across the globe – including Sheffield Shield cricket in Australia, where he excelled, once scoring an incredible 181 in a two-hour session. Unable to ignore his obvious talents, he was given the chance of the occasional additional test match during the late 60’s – against India, Pakistan and Australia. He scored a memorable 83 against the latter at Lords in 1968, and a spectacular 139 at Karachi against Pakistan in the Spring of 1969. This innings would be his last for England.

The 1969 season opened with another Milburn century for Northants, but on the way home he was involved in a car accident which robbed him of the sight in his left eye and damaged his right. He battled on in the months and years ahead – including a comeback of sorts during 1973-74 – but never recaptured his former glories. He moved back down into league cricket and commentated on the game, before a fatal heart attack took him from us at the age of 48 in 1990. He was buried in Burnopfield.

The County of Tyne & Wear

Just in case you don’t recognise it, this is the flag of Tyne & Wear – the much maligned new ‘county’ formed as a result of the controversial reshuffling of the shire borders of England in 1974. As a consequence of legislation passed since, it has both ceased to exist in one sense, yet continues to exist in another. It has left us locals all rather confused.

The area in question is neatly illustrated thus:

(from Tyne& Wear Lieutenancy)

Formerly, the mini-county was shared between Northumberland to the north and County Durham to the south, with the boundary being provided by the River Tyne. After years of humming and hawing, the powers-that-be decided to carve up the land thereabouts as illustrated above. ‘Tyne & Wear’ was the name given to the new creation (born, ironically, on 1^st April 1974), it being officially known as a ‘metropolitan county’. The venture was seen as a way of giving the largely urban population of the area a more efficient and properly focussed way of governing their patch of the UK, independent of the old historical counties which continued to exist in reduced form.

The Tyne & Wear brand proved difficult to sell to a resident population that was, remember, traditionally split between Northumberland and Durham and (more importantly) between Geordie and Mackem. It had its own county council, of course, and it can be argued that much good was done in its name; but after limping on for a decade or so the council was abolished in 1986, with the five ‘metropolitan authorities’ of Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside going their separate ways, essentially becoming self-governing.

Rather than reverting back to a clean Northumberland/Durham split, though, it was decided to maintain the ‘Tyne & Wear’ brand in a somewhat half-cocked way. Many services continued to be run jointly by the five authorites (transport, fire & rescue, museums & archives, etc.), and the ‘Tyne & Wear metropolitan county’ continued (and continues) to exist in law and as a ‘geographical frame of reference’. It also still exists as a ‘ceremonial county’, which means that it has a Lord Lieutenant acting as a representative of the monarch. There is, however, no longer any Tyne & Wear-wide administrative/governmental body.

It seems only a matter of time before the term ‘Tyne & Wear’ disappears into history – there being quite a clamour, generally, for a return to the historic county boundaries across the whole of England. Royal Mail officially doesn’t care whether we use Northumberland, Co.Durham, Tyne & Wear or, indeed, nothing at all for the county line of addresses on our envelopes. For the moment, though, we stagger on somewhat confusedly – and under the banner of our proud blue flag, if you feel so inclined.

Tommy Glidden, Native of Coxlodge (NZ232684)

In the days when Coxlodge was a settlement consisting of a handful of terraces around a couple of collieries, a certain T.W.Glidden was born there – a man who would go on to find footballing fame, but at some distant from his native parish.

Thomas William Glidden was born on 20^th July 1902 and began kicking a football in earnest for local outfit Colliery Old Boys, before moving on to Boldon Villa and Sunderland West End. Moving up to the professional game, he spent his entire career thereafter in the Midlands at West Bromwich Albion during 1922-36.

When he joined Albion in 1922, they were a force to be reckoned with in the game – having been crowned English champions as recently as 1920. It was, therefore, no mean feat breaking into the team, where he played as a forward at outside-right for a total of 445 league games, scoring 135 goals. He helped the club to a 2^nd place finish in 1925, before they were relegated in 1927. They languished in the Second Division for four seasons, gaining promotion in 1931 with Glidden as captain.

However, 1931 also brought West Brom’s first FA Cup success for almost four decades – and Glidden had the honour of lifting the trophy as skipper as they beat local rivals Birmingham City at Wembley 2-1 (incidentally, Glidden had scored the only goal in the semi-final win over Everton). The cup victory on 25^th April was followed a week later with confirmation of their promotion back to the First Division – the first (and only) time such a ‘double’ had been achieved in English football. In the crucial final league match Glidden both scored and made a goal in a 3-2 win at Charlton.

Glidden continued playing for West Brom until the close of the 1935-36 season – all in the First Division – appearing in a second FA Cup Final in 1935 (again as captain) when Albion lost to Sheffield Wednesday. He is remembered as one of the club’s finest captains, but never quite gained an England international cap.

He died in West Bromwich in July 1974, ten days short of his 72^nd birthday.

William Shield Memorial, Whickham (NZ210613)

In memory of

WILLIAM SHIELD

Musician and composer

Born at Swalwell,

March 5^th 1748.

Died in London,

January 25^th 1829.

Buried in Westminster Abbey.

Erected

by public subscription

1891.

The above memorial – a stone cross atop an engraved base – sits at the west end of Whickham churchyard. William Shield, the son of a local boat-builder, began his musical career by fiddling on his fiddle whilst apprenticed at his father’s trade. Losing his parents whilst still a child, he went on to study music with Charles Avison in Newcastle. Throughout his youth he appeared at local gigs until his reputation gained for him the chance to opt for a full-time musical career.

He was a violinist, violist and, most famously, a composer – rising to lead the Spa Orchestra at Scarborough. One of his most notable early efforts as a music writer was to pen a piece for the consecration of St.John’s Church, Sunderland, in 1769 at the specific request of the Bishop of Durham.

For 18 years Shield was first viola at the Italian Opera in London, and also found time to play with, and be composer to, Covent Garden Theatre (now the Royal Opera House). He became acquainted with Joseph Haydn during the great man’s London visit of 1791, which further inspired him to write many operas and other stage works. In 1817 he became Master of the King’s Musick.

Like many of his type of the time, Shield plundered local folk music for his own purposes – in his case, that of Northumberland and Durham. Many of his pieces were light and popularist in nature – more or less forerunners of what we now know as ‘musicals’. He has been strongly linked with the New Year ditty, Auld Lang Syne (the tune’s composer, that is, set to Robert Burns’ words), but no conclusive evidence has been unearthed to back this theory (it appears briefly near the end of his opera Rosina). It is far more likely that the roots of the famous old tune lie buried in English/Scottish/Border folklore – a rich pool of material into which Shield (and indeed Burns) regularly dipped their talented toes.

He died in London on 25^th January 1829 (coincidentally, Burns Night) and was interred in Westminster Abbey at the specific request of King George IV.

Durham City’s First Railway Station (NZ288408)

One’s arrival at Durham City’s present-day railway station, high to the north-west of the tight little conurbation, gives the lucky participant one of the finest views of the East Coast Main Line: the stunning vista that is Durham and its mighty Norman Cathedral. If ever there was an excuse to dismount and get out the camera, then surely this is it.

But Durham’s county town was not an easy place to reach by rail due to the awkward topography thereabouts. Following the birth of the railways in the North-East in 1825, the rail network spread rapidly throughout the region; but the task of linking County Durham’s two main towns, Sunderland and Durham, was easier said than done.

Shincliffe Village, a little to the south-east of Durham City – and very much outside the city boundary – was the unlikely setting of the very first railway station to serve the county’s ‘capital’. Moving coal from pit to port was the primarily use of the burgeoning rail network, of course, and one such line was thrown across the countryside from Sunderland to the pits and collieries to the south of Durham City at an early stage. This line passed through Shincliffe – the nearest it crept to the county town – so a decision was made to upgrade the line for passenger use as far as the little village. A brand new station was therefore built there to accommodate the travellers, and it opened on 28^th July 1839.

The village of Shincliffe had been served by a bridge over the Wear (which leads to Durham) for many, many centuries – possibly as far back as the Romans. A new structure had been thrown up as recently as 1824, so it was no doubt considered an easy enough two mile trip into town from this point – at least by the standards of the time. Needless to say, though, as people’s expectation grew, so easier access was sought, and a succession of new lines and stations eventually rendered Shincliffe Village Station redundant – though it hung on until 1893. Traces of it still remain in the village, apparently.

Sunderland Bridge (NZ266376)

Visitors to this little village by the side of the old Great North Road often wonder about the origin of its place-name. After all, Sunderland proper lies a good fifteen miles to the North-East of this settlement. Can the two possibly be connected in some distant way?

Well, yes and no. By a strange coincidence, both lie adjacent to the River Wear. Moreover, both just happen to have the same place-name derivation. But that’s it, I’m afraid: there the similarities end. Sunderland Bridge, like its more famous namesake, is so labelled due to its being ‘sundered’ or ‘separated’ land. In the case of ‘little Sunderland’, the village was an isolated portion of the ancient parish of St.Oswald in Elvet to the north, from which it was separated by the aforementioned river. One may speculate that the ‘Bridge’ bit was added to distinguish it from ‘big’ Sunderland – perhaps. 

Over the years it has also been known as ‘Sunderland juxta Croxdale’ (juxta meaning ‘near’), and even simply ‘Sunderland-by-the-Bridge’. The bridge, in case you’re wondering, is the stone effort which lies nearby, and which has its roots in the 13th/14th century. Though the old river crossing is still in use, the weight of the main road is now taken by a modern-ish metal affair – and for good measure the East Coast Rail line also crosses the river a few yards upstream.

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Andy Capp (NZ514345)

Andy Capp, that fag-bearing, beer-swilling – and hen-pecked – stereotypical northern bloke, was born in Hartlepool – or rather his creator was, namely one Reginald Smyth, in July 1917, at 52 Union Road.

Reg was a very ordinary sort, born to working class, often bickering, parents, who had been forced together by a shot-gun wedding.  His father liked his drink, and his mother never tired of reminding him of it – sound familiar?  Well, although Andy Capp’s long-suffering wife, Flo, was based on Reg’s mum, Andy himself was an amalgam of much that was evident by way of male role models in the days of his creator’s youth – and not specifically his own father.

The family wandered between Hartlepool and Sunderland as the marriage ebbed and flowed, young Reg leaving school at 14 to become a butcher’s boy.  He later saw action during WWII in Africa and the Middle East – a time during which he honed his cartooning skills with his ‘pals’.  After the war, he joined the GPO and married.

Encouraged by his friends and family, he embarked on a little cartooning work for the Northern Daily Mail, then got his break with The Daily Mirror in 1954 when he was taken on full-time – and added an ‘e’ to his surname so that he may seem ever-so-slightly posher to southern readers. His famous layabout creation finally appeared on 5^th August 1957 when Reg was prompted by his boss to devise a new character – and Andy Capp, the man who was a ‘handicap’ to his wife, was born.

Andy – and Reg – went onto international stardom, of course; but the artist soon tired of life in London and moved back to Hartlepool for the final two decades of his life, dying in 1998 aged 80.

[the above is based on an interview given by Smyth’s cousin, Ian Smyth Herdman, to the Sunderland Echo on 10^th August 2007 – see here]

Captain of the North (NZ443412)

Ex-professional footballer Stan Anderson published an autobiography in 2010 entitled Captain of the North (see here).  Never can a book have borne a more appropriate title: for the man in question is the only individual, ever, to have captained each of the region’s ‘Big Three’ football clubs – Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough.  Stan was a cultured, whole-hearted midfielder with an eye for goal; considered to be ahead of his time by many in the way he played and thought about the game.

Anderson was born on 27^th February 1934* in Horden, Co.Durham.  After turning out for the colliery’s team as a teenager whilst learning plastering and plumbing, he eventually signed professional forms for Sunderland in 1951 and made over 400 appearances for the red and whites – gaining two England caps in 1962 and forming part of his country’s 1962 World Cup squad.

In 1963, he moved to rivals Newcastle United, where he stayed for two years, steering them to promotion in 1965.  He then signed for Middlesbrough as player-coach, then became manager during 1966-73 (amazingly, he had been rejected by the Teesside club whilst playing for Horden Colliery).  Thereafter, he had spells as a manager at AEK Athens, QPR, Donaster Rovers and Bolton Wanderers, before retiring to care for his wife in 1981.

He is now into his late 70s and lives in Doncaster.

* Strangely, his exact date of birth varies between sources – 27^th February 1933 and 12^th December 1933 are also given.  If you’re reading this, Stan, do put me straight!

Ryhope Pumping Station (NZ403524)

 

Now known as the Ryhope Engines Museum, this splendid landmark is one of the best examples of its kind to have survived from the Victorian era.  It was opened in 1868 to serve the Sunderland area, providing it with a supply of clean water for a century before it closed in 1967.  Though the station no longer pumps water, its two 100-horsepower beam engines are kept in working order and prodded into life for the benefit of visitors during regular ‘steam days’.

Like similar stations in the region, the idea was to draw clean water up from the magnesian limestone rocks below, and thus improve the lot of the expanding populations of the local towns – in this case Sunderland.  It was all in response to the cholera epidemics of the early nineteenth century, of course, and followed various Acts of Parliament which facilitated the creation of the Sunderland & South Shields Water Company in 1852.  In line with other similar stations (including that at Cleadon), Thomas Hawksley was the architect, the planning and construction process spanning 1864-68.

Museum website here.

Ryhope’s Two Railway Stations (NZ414527)

Few settlements the size of Ryhope can claim to have had two railway stations – and surely no other place in the country can have had two within a few dozen yards of each other, both operating at the same time!

This curious state of affairs came about because of the number of competing railway companies in the region during the early years of the railways. What was originally known as Ryhope Railway Station was opened in 1854 as part of the Londonderry, Seaham and Sunderland Railway system, built by local notable, Lord Londonderry, to help ship his coal (and a few passengers) to the coast and Sunderland. Within a year, though, a second line and station graced the still modest village as a competing company spread its wings. The two stopping points became known as East and West Stations, respectively, and operated quite independently of one another, yards apart. The course of the two tracks can still be clearly made out on the modern-day map.

The ludicrous state of affairs didn’t last, with the stations’ amalgamation in 1900. The western track (Londonderry’s old line), which once went all the way to Durham City, is now disused (being finally closed to passengers in 1952); whilst the eastern track still carries folk betwixt Sunderland and Middlesbrough – though no one has disembarked at Ryhope since 1960 when the old East Station complex closed.

There’s a neat track plan of Ryhope here, which may explain things a little better.

Maiden’s Paps (NZ392544)

 

Maiden’s Paps – or Tunstall Hills, as they are less crudely and more properly called – form one of the best vantage points in the borough of Sunderland. Though little more than 300ft in elevation, the twin peaks of Rocky Hill and Green Hill offer extensive views in all directions, far beyond the expectations of those who scale their modest heights.

A noted landmark from land and sea for many a century, the magnesian limestone outcrops have courted their fair share of attention and controversy over the years: fossil hunters in search of traces of ancient marine life, natural historians on the look-out for rare flora and fauna, and quarrymen, of course, all have their place in the history of the beauty spot. The site is now a Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest with its Rights of Way protected in law, enabling dogs to be walked there in perpetuity. But this has not always been the case, thus:-

[Letter to the Sunderland Echo, 15th September 1854]

About 2 years ago an attempt was made to hinder the public from enjoying free access to that most delightful resort - Tunstall Hill - the stile at the foot of the hill (on its southern side), being repeatedly closed with thorns - and on one particular Sunday evening, when the thorns had been removed, the bars of the stile were carefully daubed with filth, with the disgusting intention of damaging the garments of those who might unwittingly attempt to climb over. This summer another determined attempt has been made to close of the stile, but I hope the publication of this letter will be sufficient to rouse the spirit of those who, like myself, love a country walk, and induce them to clear away the obstruction. You will remember that the right of way over Tunstall Hill was challenged some years ago before the magistrates, when the bench wisely declined interfering with so clear and palpable public right.

[article from the Sunderland Echo, 10th June 1859]

Blockade of Tunstall Hill

We feel that we are strictly within the line of our duty as public journalists in directing the attention of our township to an attempt which has been made during the afternoon of the last three Sundays, on the part of the tenant farmer, to exclude the public from the approach to Tunstall Road and the hill. We need hardly say that this is an illegal act, and only calls for vigorous action to be effectively set aside. The inhabitants of Sunderland have enjoyed the undisputed right of walking on these beautiful hills so far back that "the memory of man knows not to the contrary" … We understand that if these attempts should be persisted in, a number of gentlemen are prepared to take the steps needful to restore the public rights and, in the meantime, we advise our fellow townsmen to insist upon the right of way, and to remove all obstructions in the way of free ingress and egress, and thus secure for future generations the liberty of visiting the romantic locality, from which a view of our town and all the adjacent country can be obtained of surpassing interest.

However, as the very same newspaper was to eventually report on 2nd June 1943…

Tunstall Hills Gift to Sunderland

The whole of Tunstall Hills is to belong to the people of Sunderland. Some years ago, Sunderland Corporation purchased 39 acres of land in this area, including the Rocky Hill, for allotments, playing fields and open spaces. Now Miss E H Pemberton, of Ramside, County Durham, has offered to present to the town the remaining 7 acres of the site, which consists of the Green Hill and surrounding land. Sunderland General Purposes Committee last night was told that this was a free gift without conditions, except that the land is to be considered as a memorial to those from the town who have given their lives in the service of their country in this war.

Latterly, the Tunstall Hills Protection Group has ensured the powers-that-be are kept well-and-truly on their toes when it comes to encroachment upon their green oasis – golf courses, roads and, most recently, from wind turbines.

For more information (and a nice picture) see the Group’s website at http://www.tunstallhills.org.uk/ - from which the above newspaper extracts have been lifted.  More details about Tunstall Hills can also be found here.

 

Hasting Hill Barrow (NZ353544)

 © Copyright Brian Abbott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This prehistoric burial mound sits atop a low prominence a few yards to the east of the busy A19 on the very edge of suburban Sunderland. Now largely ignored and forgotten it is, however, one of the borough’s most notable historical sites.

Excavated by archaeologist C.T.Trechmann in 1911, it was found to be of earth and stone construction, 12m in diameter and about 1m in height – basically a chamber build into the limestone peak covered with earth and stones. The remains of ten burials were found, dating to approximately 2,000BC (late Neolithic/early Bronze Age), together with a wide selection of pottery – including several food vessels, beakers, and the like – all associated with the burials. Some bone and flint tools were also found. The finds are kept at Sunderland Museum.

The site, in the meantime, has since had a triangulation point plopped on its top.

400m to the south-east can be found faint traces of Neolithic earthworks, indicating significant human activity in the area around 4,000 years ago.

If you wish to find out more, check out here, here and here.

Hendon: A World First (NZ412568)

   

In case you can’t read the inscription, it says:-

The First Aluminium Alloy Bascule Bridge in the World.

Port of Sunderland.

From the water colour painting by Leslie Carr, published in “Light Metals,” December, 1948.

… A ‘bascule bridge’ being one that opens from the middle upwards, much like London’s Tower Bridge. Can’t say whether the aluminium version ever caught on, though, and I’d be interested to learn if anyone out there knows. The Hendon model certainly didn’t last long: opened in 1948, it was reported as being in a poor state by the 1970s – and I have been unable to discover when exactly it was dismantled and sold for scrap. If anyone has anything to add, please comment below.

In the meantime, there is an excellent article about the bridge about half way down the page, here, where one will find many more images and locational plans and maps.

 

The Victoria Hall Disaster (NZ400566)

 

The largest catastrophe of its kind ever to take place in the UK occurred on 16th June 1883 in Sunderland, when 183 children died of asphyxia at the base of a stairwell in the town’s Victoria Hall.

Tempted by The Fay’s travelling entertainers from Tynemouth Aquarium, upwards of 2,000 youngsters descended on the now long-gone theatre which used to stand on the junction of Toward Road and Laura Street, overlooking Mowbray Park. The variety show was a magnificent success, until its tragic finale – the children having been royally entertained by the show’s many tricks and illusions. At the end of the afternoon’s antics, with the audience at fever pitch, the much anticipated hand-out of free gifts commenced – a random process for the most part, though specially numbered tickets had precedence.

As those in the stalls began benefiting first, a certain amount of confusion and panic spread throughout the gallery as those in the upper reaches of the theatre feared they would miss out. Keen to collect any gifts on offer – a rare treat indeed for youngster of the day – the 1,000 or so children began swarming downstairs – to be met with a partially bolted door and no way of escape.

Reports as to how the situation arose – and who was to blame – differ wildly. The net result was indisputable, however, as a massive crush – some say as much as twenty bodies deep – ensued. As the few adults present tried desperately to release the locked doors, the children kept on piling in from the staircase above. By the time the doors were finally ripped from their hinges, a total of 183 youngsters had perished in the writhing mass – 114 boys and 69 girls, almost all of them between seven and eleven years old. Some families lost three or four offspring – and one entire Bible Class of 30 from a local Sunday School was wiped out.

The national outcry which followed resulted, directly, in the passing of new laws that required all public venues to have a sufficient number of exits, and that all exit doors must open outwards – which led to the invention of the now familiar ‘push bar’ emergency door.

There are many excellent sources of further information on the Internet, including:-

Wearside Online (very full account);

BBC (including victims list);

Sunderland City Library Handout (many photos);

Wikipedia (good list of further sources).

 

John the Pieman (c.NZ397570)

 
Joseph Cawthorne, or ‘John the Pieman’, was a well-known character of mid-nineteenth century Sunderland – more especially for the way in which he would sell his goods. When a customer approached, they were required to put a penny down on a tin lid and ask: “Heads or tails?” If John guessed right, he took the penny and gave them no pie; but if he guessed wrong, they got their penny back and a pie into the bargain. “I am the only man in Sunderland who fought at Waterloo,” he would claim – a boast sustained by medals he occasionally wore on his breast which proved him to be a veteran of the great battle, and of the Peninsular War.

Cawthorne, it seems, was born on 29th August 1790, at Newark-on-Trent. At 14 he was apprenticed to a canvas weaver, but was hardly out of his apprenticeship when he joined the Montgomeryshire Militia, and thereafter the first battalion of the Rifle Brigade. In the Peninsular War he fought at Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse, among others, during which time he was wounded once.

At Waterloo in 1815, he was wounded again, this time more severely. After returning to England, he continued in the service of his country until his discharge in about 1819. He got no pension, and for some unknown reason eventually found himself in Sunderland, where he took up his living as a pieman. In his late 60s, efforts were made to get him a small pension, and sixpence a day was awarded; which was increased to 9d in 1863, and in 1866 to a shilling a day. The old man died in 1869, aged 78.

 

 

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (NZ375579)

The inventor of the incandescent electric light bulb was born at Pallion Hall*, Sunderland, on 31st October 1828. Leaving school at twelve, he was apprenticed to a firm of local chemists, before moving onto a similar firm run by John Mawson, in Newcastle. In time, Swan would develop many new processes in the burgeoning photography business – patenting the carbon process for photographic printing in 1864, and inventing the dry plate (1871) and bromide paper (1879).

Swan was an enthusiastic member of the Newcastle Literary & Philosophical Society (which still exists), and became hooked on the search for a practical electric light bulb after witnessing an early demonstration in which a wire was made to glow after being placed across a battery. Early models by Swan and others were pretty useless affairs, but our man persevered with wires of many different materials – eventually falling upon specially coated carbonised paper, of all things. But only when there was no oxygen present would the filaments hold firm – and try as he might, he couldn’t get a completely ‘clean’ oxygen-free vacuum.

In the end – and after more than a quarter of a century of trying – he had to essentially invent the world’s first artificial fibre (a sort of rayon, or artificial silk), which would then be carbonised, placed in an oxygen-free tube, then heated. By the late 1870s he was at last able to get his special filaments to glow white without burning out. After showing a few friends, he then demonstrated his process to a packed Lit & Phil Society lecture theatre in Newcastle on 3rd February 1879, and the world would never be the same again.

Swan didn’t bother properly patenting the carbon-filament making process, and so allowed Thomas Edison to steal a good deal of his thunder over the coming months and years as the American tried to claim the credit, quite wrongly, for the new invention. A dispute arose between the two of them during 1879, which exploded when Swan opened his light-bulb factory in Benwell, Newcastle, in 1881. Eventually, however, they buried their differences (or rather their similarities!) and joined forces with the ‘Edison & Swan United Electric Light Co.’ in 1883.

Swan’s home at the time, Underhill in Gateshead, was the first private home to be lit by electric lighting. Most of Swan’s experiments were conducted in the property’s greenhouse - and Underhill still stands in Kells Lane to this day. The great man was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1894, knighted in 1904 and died in Warlingham, Surrey, in 1914.

* Pallion Hall was demolished in 1901. It used to sit a little to the north of the present-day Pallion Metro Station, not far from the River Wear.

Death of the Shipyards (c.NZ380578 & thereabouts)

In 1989, the final remaining vestiges of the shipbuilding industry were wiped from the River Wear when the Pallion and Southwick yards were closed by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government.  It signalled the end of a way of life stretching back more than six centuries.  Here’s how the press reported the sorry episode (exact source unknown)…

 

DECEMBER 12, 1988, saw the final ship to be built on the Wear slide down the slipway on a bitterly cold winter’s night. The chill which affected onlookers not only came from the plunging temperature but from the realisation that an industry, which had sustained Sunderland for centuries, had disappeared. Efforts continued to revive it and campaigners put up a spirited fight. Their hopes were raised repeatedly only to be dashed as time and time again progress became enmeshed in red tape stretched tightly between the European Commission in Brussels and Whitehall in London. It is true that the Sunderland shipyards were struggling to find orders before they closed. The world market for ships was a tough one and the Tory Government decided enough was enough and they were not going to help the Wearside industry any longer. The closure deal was put together by the European Commission and the British Government. It involved a £45million aid package to soften the blow for Sunderland and that meant that a ban - or moratorium - on shipbuilding had to be brought in. Euro-chiefs did not want to see millions of pounds of aid pumped into Wearside to compensate for the loss of a major industry, only to see it start up again a few years later. So unclear at times were the terms of the closure that it was not immediately apparent that the ban was to last for ten years. And so Sunderland resigned itself to the loss of the yards. Events moved quickly. At Southwick, which many still called the Austin & Pickersgill yard, a major auction of plant and equipment was held. Then the demolition squads moved in and the world-famous yard was levelled, crushing any vestiges of hope that it would ever turn steel into ships again. It vanished virtually overnight. The same fate awaited the North Sands yard. It was bulldozed and eventually housed a new university campus. That left only the Pallion yard intact, but, unable to build ships, it was effectively mothballed, frozen in time, a reminder of the glory days of shipbuilding. But its name also served as a rallying call for diehard shipyard campaigners who lived in hope that one day, perhaps, the industry would return. Taken over by an Anglo-Greek consortium and called Pallion Engineering, the yard has been maintained. But, as a fully operational shipyard, building ships, Pallion has slumbered. Shipbuilding on the Wear was, to all intents and purposes, forgotten.

 

[Text taken from here]