Durham Memories: Changing landscape of mining village

There were several farmhouses, including the old manor house of the Durham sacrist at Sacriston Heugh.

Other buildings included Nettlesworth West House, Fulforth Farm near Witton Gilbert, Acorn Close at Charlaw Fell and two farmhouses at Findon Hill.

Until the 1830s there was no mining village called Sacriston and no village called Daisy Hill.

Witton Gilbert, an agricultural village to the south, was the main settlement and the Sacriston crossroads, at the heart of the area, was no more than a meeting of dirt tracks from Plawsworth, Witton Gilbert and Durham.

Further north, on the western side of the track that became Sacriston's Front Street, stood Lingy House Farm. One of the oldest houses in Sacriston, it was demolished in recent years and replaced by modern homes in St Cuthbert's Drive.

Sacriston really came into being in 1839 when Victoria Pit opened below Sacriston Heugh.

Around the same time another colliery, Charlaw Colliery, opened a quarter of a mile south where a mine had been worked in 1733.

Coal from the two collieries was transported using the newly-constructed Sacriston wagonway. A stationary engine at Daisy Hill hauled wagons along the wagonway to Waldridge Fell from where the coal was taken by rail to the Tyne for shipment.

Edward Richardson, of West Hendon, and Joseph Hunter, of Walbottle, owned Charlaw Colliery in 1839. They may have also owned Victoria Pit, but its ownership is unclear and changed frequently in the early days.

One unusual change of ownership took place in April 1851 when a remaining two-year lease of the Victoria Pit was sold at auction. The working stock had already been sold and the sale of this short lease attracted little interest.

Eventually, a miner called Peter Strong plucked up the courage to shout to the auctioneer "I'll gie ye a farden sir". His bid caused amusement, but the auctioneer requested a coin of higher value.

The same miner and a colliery viewer then simultaneously offered a shilling, but the bid was rejected because they had shouted together. Finally, Mr Strong made an offer of two shillings and this was accepted.

One of his colleagues remarked "Peter, thoo's been a poor pitman lang enough, but thoo's a greet coal owner noo!"

How Mr Strong made use of his purchase is not recorded but the mine later passed to a Mr Bell, and then to William Hunter and George Elliot, owners of Charlaw, Kimblesworth and Nettlesworth Collieries. Their mines were amalgamated in 1890 as the Charlaw and Sacriston Colliery Company.

Charlaw Colliery had closed in 1884, but in 1859 its owners had sunk a new mine called Witton Pit, to the south. This continued operating after 1884.

Victoria and Witton Pits were by then a single colliery called Sacriston Victoria. A colliery coke works opened between the two pits in 1891. Six years later, a new mine called Shield Row drift opened. Other drift mines opened at Sacriston Colliery in the 1930s and 1940s.

Early housing in Sacriston was centred around the village crossroads on the south side of Witton Road and parts of the Durham Road. There was initially less development on other parts of the crossroads, but Plawsworth Road was the site of a smithy.

North of the crossroads a number of colliery terraces clustered along the eastern side of Sacriston Front Street.

These were the Cross Streets, consisting of five basic streets of ten back-to-back terraces with narrow alleyways between.

Cross Street residents included a significant number of Irish families. Indeed a doctor visiting Sacriston in the 1860s remarked on blackshawled Irish women squatting at doors smoking clay pipes.

However, Sacriston's Irish population, though significant, was probably no greater than that of many other Durham pit villages.

A school opened across the road from the Cross Streets in about 1844 but Sacriston's parish church did not open until 1866. Pubs called the Boot and Shoe (later the Queens Head), Colliery Inn (replaced by a building of the same name in 1902) and George and Dragon served the community and are on the 1850s map.

Later 19th Century developments included the construction of Staffordshire Streets on the western side of Front Street. These were really one very wide street of two rows. The Staffordshire Streets were probably built in about 1860 and commemorated an influx of miners from the south Staffordshire coalfield.

Along the centre of the street were outhouses and where the street joined Front Street, it was divided into two by a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, but after the First World War the Sacriston Memorial Institute was built on this site.

Developments took place behind the Cross Streets where Elliott, Hunter and Blackett Streets were built as part of an area called New Town, while Church Street was built to its north.

Cross Streets were demolished in about 1939 and the street's inhabitants moved to new housing south of the Plawsworth Road. Staffordshire Streets were also demolished, as were many streets in the former New Town development.

Although little remains of the early streets, we will look at some of the notable buildings in next week's Durham Memories.

If you have any memories of Durham City, Chester-le-Street, Derwentside or the Durham coast, including old photos or stories of people and places you would like to share with readers of The Northern Echo, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or email David.Simpson@nne.co.uk. All photos will be returned.