A social history question. . . . . Talking to my 90 year old aunt about her childhood, and she is telling me about some time in the 1930s. She and her school friends used to bicycle ride from Dunston to Whickham and beyond - perhaps in the direction of Lobley Hill. Somewhere there was a mining village where there had been a mining disaster. The whole village had been evacuated and the houses had been just left complete with furniture. They used to play on the slag heaps after climbing over a wall which was built to keep people out, and explore the empty houses. Once her mother discovered where they had been playing, they were forbidden to go there as it was too dangerous. Does anyone have any idea what village this might have been? Heather

Heather: I doubt whether it was Bilton Bank, as we are looking for a village within easy cycling distence of Dunston, in the general direction of Whickham - ie southwards. While there were numerous pit villages which were abandoned and ultmately demolished once the pit closed, including those condemned under Durham County Council's unpopular "Category D" policy in the 1950s and 1960s, it would be rare indeed for the houses to be left with furniture still inside, as if the abandonment was a rushed emergency job. Occasionally, perhaps, a family would want to dispose of their furniture if moving to a nice modern house, or if the last occupant had been a single old person who was going to be taken in by the next generation, whose house was already full with their own furniture, and if it was not anticipated that the old stuff would bring anything worthwhile if sold second-hand, then it, or some of it, might have been left behind for that reason. It was not unknown for a pit village to fall victim to mining subsidence, however, but that would usually be a slow process. Even the grand houses of the coal-owners were not immune. Examples in the cycling range we are looking at might include Gibside Hall and Ravensworth Castle. Personally, I suspect that what the children had found was not a pit village at all but was Ravensworth Castle, situated within the Wall of the Ravensworth Estate, and from where its furniture was eventually sold off. If not Ravensworth and not Gibside, then I'm afraid the story of "there having been a disaster in the village" does not really help identify it, as that applied to very, very many of our local pit villages. Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: heather <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 3:00 Subject: [NMB] coal mining village A social history question. . . . . Talking to my 90 year old aunt about her childhood, and she is telling me about some time in the 1930s. She and her school friends used to bicycle ride from Dunston to Whickham and beyond - perhaps in the direction of Lobley Hill. Somewhere there was a mining village where there had been a mining disaster. The whole village had been evacuated and the houses had been just left complete with furniture. They used to play on the slag heaps after climbing over a wall which was built to keep people out, and explore the empty houses. Once her mother discovered where they had been playing, they were forbidden to go there as it was too dangerous. Does anyone have any idea what village this might have been? Heather .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Further to my earlier suggestion that the "village" might have been Ravensworth Castle, this quote from "Romantic Ravensworth", by Clarence R Walton (1950), may be relevant. "Lord Ravensworth died in November 1919, and the following year there was held within the castle's noble walls an extensive sale when furniture, china, bronzes, manuscripts and books and many art treasures changed possession" "Gerald Wellesley, the sixth Baron, left Ravensworth to live at Eslington Park, near Alnwick, and the castle became but a romantic picture of the past. For a short while it was used as a High School for young ladies, then its doors were closed and this stately old pile was left to Time's ravage and decay. Robert Arthur Liddell, the seventh Lord Ravensworth, who succeeded to the title in June, 1932, decided in 1936 to pull the castle down and to erect in its place a model village from the stone and valuable oak timbers. "This act aroused the indignation of all lovers of beautiful Britain who accused his lordship of vandalism. Lord Ravensworth replied to his critics in the local Press revealing that through the workings of a 30-acre coalfield beneath, the castle was beginning to sink, and that huge cracks were appearing in its walls. The castle was no longer tenantable, and his intention to pull it down ..... was a wise one." In fact, while most of Ravensworth Castle was demolished, a few fragments still remain. These seem to be the older parts of the structure - the mediaeval tower(s) from which the castle "grew". Today, of course, the whole building, which was a fine and huge residential "Palace", rather than a military castle, would have been protected by being listed, but that was not so in the 1930s. The scheme to build houses there, like many a planner's pipe-dream, came to nothing and the remains are now largely surrounded by woodland. If only the danger had been perceived in time, and if the owners had had the necessary will to protect their house, they could have done what an earlier Lord Lambton did to protect Lambton Castle (another Victorian non-castle) only a few miles away. There the offending coal workings were entered underground and packed with bricks, made in Lambton's own brickworks, attached to his coal mines. It took millions of bricks to do the job, but they worked, and Lambton Castle still survives and I understand that, after years of 20th century neglect it is again the home of the current head of that family, while the Liddells, Earls of Ravensworth, are still exiled in Eslington. If the "village" was indeed Ravensworth Castle, then it seems that it was perhaps furniture left over from the school which the young cyclists discovered in the 1930s. Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: Geoff Nicholson <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 11:32 Subject: Re: [NMB] coal mining village Heather: I doubt whether it was Bilton Bank, as we are looking for a village within easy cycling distence of Dunston, in the general direction of Whickham - ie southwards. While there were numerous pit villages which were abandoned and ultmately demolished once the pit closed, including those condemned under Durham County Council's unpopular "Category D" policy in the 1950s and 1960s, it would be rare indeed for the houses to be left with furniture still inside, as if the abandonment was a rushed emergency job. Occasionally, perhaps, a family would want to dispose of their furniture if moving to a nice modern house, or if the last occupant had been a single old person who was going to be taken in by the next generation, whose house was already full with their own furniture, and if it was not anticipated that the old stuff would bring anything worthwhile if sold second-hand, then it, or some of it, might have been left behind for that reason. It was not unknown for a pit village to fall victim to mining subsidence, however, but that would usually be a slow process. Even the grand houses of the coal-owners were not immune. Examples in the cycling range we are looking at might include Gibside Hall and Ravensworth Castle. Personally, I suspect that what the children had found was not a pit village at all but was Ravensworth Castle, situated within the Wall of the Ravensworth Estate, and from where its furniture was eventually sold off. If not Ravensworth and not Gibside, then I'm afraid the story of "there having been a disaster in the village" does not really help identify it, as that applied to very, very many of our local pit villages. Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: heather <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 3:00 Subject: [NMB] coal mining village A social history question. . . . . Talking to my 90 year old aunt about her childhood, and she is telling me about some time in the 1930s. She and her school friends used to bicycle ride from Dunston to Whickham and beyond - perhaps in the direction of Lobley Hill. Somewhere there was a mining village where there had been a mining disaster. The whole village had been evacuated and the houses had been just left complete with furniture. They used to play on the slag heaps after climbing over a wall which was built to keep people out, and explore the empty houses. Once her mother discovered where they had been playing, they were forbidden to go there as it was too dangerous. Does anyone have any idea what village this might have been? Heather .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message