_Before shaking off the dust of Bedlingtonshire from our feet, we have a
few more places to deal with, for the shire is a considerable district.
Extending as it does from the Wansbeck on the north to the Blyth on the
south and longitudinally from the sea on the east to where it touches
the boundaries of Stannington and Morpeth on the west. Embracing within
these limits no less than six different townships, with some of which
we have already dealt.
As we have before stated, the whole shire is underlaid by a magnificent seam of coal, but it is only within the last forty or fifty years that it has been much worked. Indeed, we speak within bounds when we say that more coal has been produced in the shire during the last ten years than during the whole of its previous history.
So far back as 1635, however, we find records of coal pits being sunk in the shire and sixty years later leases for twenty-one years were granted at a charge of only £2 per pit. Although coal was doubtless sent out of the district at this early period, both by land and sea, there can be little doubt that the pits then sunk must have been principally landsale pits. And could the old “Geordies” of the period be resuscitated for a brief sojourn near the places where they hewed of yore, they would blink their ghostly eyes and rattle their fleshless marrow bones in wonder at the great changes which have taken place since they hewed the coal at a very short distance down from the surface.
Since then many changes have taken place in coal mining. The primitive hand windlass has given place to the horse and gin, while they in their turn have made way for the horse of steam and iron, which again has been much improved since first applied to coal mining. So it must be in an age of progress such as is the age in which we live. Even the old wood mounted gearing of the pit heap seems to be undergoing change and every new colliery which springs up seems to carry with it in the combined strength and greater elegance of its gearing numerous suggestions for more improvements in the future
Man, however, is the machine which seems least capable of improvement in the matter of coal hewing and inventors do not seem to get on well with inanimate machines for the purpose. The truth is that for mining purposes man will always be superior to machinery as a coal producing agent. For such is the nature of his construction, so pliable his organisation, that he can adapt himself to all positions and is of so flexible a nature that he can work in places where machinery may not come.
The ever increasing spirited improvement of which we speak seems to have taken hold of the Bedlington Coal Company pretty tightly. For whatever they do now is a great advance upon what has been done in the past, not only as to the character of the machinery employed, but as to the comfort and convenience of the cottages which they now build as compared with the class of cottages which were erected when the old Sleekburn pit first commenced operation.
The worst point in regard to the system of cottage improvement which seems to have set in, is that it does not go on fast enough. Besides there is a sort of pseudo-economic desire to merely patch and cobble up the old houses, instead of taking the matter boldly in hand and instituting a thorough root and branch reform of old sanitary evils. There are nor indications of something being done in this direction by the Bedlington Coal Company and really it is not before time.
We only hope they will not stop short of what is required, but go on building cottages until the wants of their workmen are sufficiently provided for and until they can all be houses near the collieries at which they work, instead of having to walk as they do in many instances, from Sleekburn to the miserable house accommodation of the Guide Post.
Barrington is one of the collieries in the occupation of this company and it is here that the work of improvement is to commence. Barrington Colliery, so called from its connection with the noble family of Barrington, stands close to the Blyth and Tyne Railway about midway between the Sleekburn and Choppington stations of the line. Having no station of its own, but being within easy distance of either of the stations we have named, no traveller up or down the line can have failed to notice Barrington Colliery with its massive stone engine tower, its light elegant gearing of ironwork projecting therefrom. So airy looking and yet so strong, so apparently inadequate to discharge its mighty task, yet so thoroughly equal to the performance of its Herculean functions.
Nor can the same traveller have failed to notice one particular row of trim two storey built cottages facing the lines and only divided from it by the width of a muddy road and a row of trim looking ornamental flower gardens, laid out in beds of all shapes. Circles, diamonds, squares and parallelograms, with every variety of bordering. This row is the best row of cottages in Barrington and somehow or other, it leaves upon the mind of the passer by an impression that Barrington is really a model colliery village.
Much of this feeling is doubtless due to the neat appearance of the flower gardens in front of the row. Much of it is also to do with the pride which most of the inhabitants seem to take in keeping their windows clean and bright and hung with curtains of various materials and colours. From the whitest of muslin and leno up to the finest, most crimson of moreen or damask.
Another feature in connection with this row, which gives it a double interest to the passing stranger, is the appearance of one of its windows as the train flashes by of fair faces belonging to the dressmakers of the village, who with the natural curiosity of their sex, leave off stitching for a few minutes to gaze or perhaps wave a hand. Or waft a kiss to someone in the passing train, possibly causing some susceptible young hewer to wonder if Miss T----- wants another apprentice, or light porter, having no objection to fill the vacancy himself.
The houses in this row each contain four rooms, two on the ground floor and two above, one of the upstairs rooms being ceiled, the other immediately under the slates and in most cases used as a lumber room. At the back is a pantry attached to each house and further back still, at a distance of twelve or fifteen yards from the back door, are the ash pits, privies and piggeries. Which in their turn are backed up by the kitchen gardens for the dwellers in this row are both florists and horticulturists, with a strong predilection for big cabbages and prize leeks.
One digger in his garden takes advantage of a question of mine to rest himself upon the handle of his spade, while he answers, “Yis, sor, thor varry canny cottages i’ this raw, but then this is the only raw i’ the place fit to leeve in.” Further questions and I gather that the head viewer has been overhauling the condition of the place lately, considerable pulling down and building up being projected.
There are in all seven rows of cottages at Barrington, which may be broadly classified as one of stone, one of wood, one part wood and part brick, the remainder being of bricks, made in the Company’s own brick kilns out of the Company’s own clay.
Besides the row we have described, other two rows face the railway, but not having the flower gardens in front, do not look quite so stylish as the top row. With this exception, however, they look equally as well, but they are impostors, for they are little more than half the size of the swellish ones above and contain only one room down and one room up, their size being about 16 feet by about 15 feet. The space between these front rows and the back ones is considerable. The ground being taken up with rudely railed in gardens, a few trees and a number of pigstyes. To say nothing of the small stream which comes through the railway embankment, throwing up on its banks a rich mineral delta of small coals and waggon wheels.
The back rows of Barrington are slums indeed and can only be paralleled by a reference to the squares of Seghill or the back to backs of Killingworth. The two most “backerly” of the “raws” are very sorry affairs indeed. One is of wood, with the exception of the slate roof and the stone floor. It faces the backside of another row part of the houses of which are wood. The two rows are not very far apart and the little space there is between them is taken up with heaps of ashes, heaps of coal and cesspools of stagnant water.
Another row is built of brick upon the back to back principle, so that one little roof may be made to cover two average families. Here again, as in the wooden row we have just left, there are neither privies nor ashpits, so that the ashes and other house refuse have just to be thrown outside at so short a distance from the doors that in summer time it must be dreadful.
These wretched little back to backs are little more than fifteen feet square, have only the miserable unceiled garret up the ladder and yet are set apart an used as the habitations of families numbering as far as six or seven members. There is some drainage, too, at Barrington, but the drains are generally stopped up and the sinkholes are open in a dangerous manner.
The village school is no exception to the general rule of bad ventilation, for it is placed close behind the old row we have described and is only open on that side, so that there is no possibility of a through draught of air.
The water supply of Barrington is derived from two sources. First, the supply which is conveyed from Sleekburn Colliery in pipes is very seldom on and when on is only fit to use as slop water, not being fit, as a sooty hewer (fresh from the bowels of the earth) informed me, to boil “either tetties or even a pudden in, to say nowt o’ drinkin or myekin broth wid.”
The other source of supply is the water cart, which brings its water from a well near the old iron works, a good mile and a half away, to be retailed to Sleekburnians and Barringtonians at the charge of “a hapenny a skeelful.”
A walk across the waggon way brings us face to face with a neat, commodious Wesleyan Chapel, the sole synagogue of the place. There is no public house nearer than Choppington. And if the Wesleyans continue to do their duty their congregation will doubtless increase. The Primitives are also going ahead here and are like the Primitives at Scotland Gate making great efforts to raise funds for a chapel.
Better times, however, are in store for Barrington if projected improvements are carried out, for it is intended to pull down the old wooden row. Which is at present such an eyesore and build a new brick row upon a somewhat improved plan about forty yards further back, so as to leave more space between the rows.
We venture to hope, however, that more than this may be done when the work is in hand and that Barrington may be so improved as to make it worthy than it is now of the favourable notice of our friend the railway passenger.
26th April 1873
As we have before stated, the whole shire is underlaid by a magnificent seam of coal, but it is only within the last forty or fifty years that it has been much worked. Indeed, we speak within bounds when we say that more coal has been produced in the shire during the last ten years than during the whole of its previous history.
So far back as 1635, however, we find records of coal pits being sunk in the shire and sixty years later leases for twenty-one years were granted at a charge of only £2 per pit. Although coal was doubtless sent out of the district at this early period, both by land and sea, there can be little doubt that the pits then sunk must have been principally landsale pits. And could the old “Geordies” of the period be resuscitated for a brief sojourn near the places where they hewed of yore, they would blink their ghostly eyes and rattle their fleshless marrow bones in wonder at the great changes which have taken place since they hewed the coal at a very short distance down from the surface.
Since then many changes have taken place in coal mining. The primitive hand windlass has given place to the horse and gin, while they in their turn have made way for the horse of steam and iron, which again has been much improved since first applied to coal mining. So it must be in an age of progress such as is the age in which we live. Even the old wood mounted gearing of the pit heap seems to be undergoing change and every new colliery which springs up seems to carry with it in the combined strength and greater elegance of its gearing numerous suggestions for more improvements in the future
Man, however, is the machine which seems least capable of improvement in the matter of coal hewing and inventors do not seem to get on well with inanimate machines for the purpose. The truth is that for mining purposes man will always be superior to machinery as a coal producing agent. For such is the nature of his construction, so pliable his organisation, that he can adapt himself to all positions and is of so flexible a nature that he can work in places where machinery may not come.
The ever increasing spirited improvement of which we speak seems to have taken hold of the Bedlington Coal Company pretty tightly. For whatever they do now is a great advance upon what has been done in the past, not only as to the character of the machinery employed, but as to the comfort and convenience of the cottages which they now build as compared with the class of cottages which were erected when the old Sleekburn pit first commenced operation.
The worst point in regard to the system of cottage improvement which seems to have set in, is that it does not go on fast enough. Besides there is a sort of pseudo-economic desire to merely patch and cobble up the old houses, instead of taking the matter boldly in hand and instituting a thorough root and branch reform of old sanitary evils. There are nor indications of something being done in this direction by the Bedlington Coal Company and really it is not before time.
We only hope they will not stop short of what is required, but go on building cottages until the wants of their workmen are sufficiently provided for and until they can all be houses near the collieries at which they work, instead of having to walk as they do in many instances, from Sleekburn to the miserable house accommodation of the Guide Post.
Barrington is one of the collieries in the occupation of this company and it is here that the work of improvement is to commence. Barrington Colliery, so called from its connection with the noble family of Barrington, stands close to the Blyth and Tyne Railway about midway between the Sleekburn and Choppington stations of the line. Having no station of its own, but being within easy distance of either of the stations we have named, no traveller up or down the line can have failed to notice Barrington Colliery with its massive stone engine tower, its light elegant gearing of ironwork projecting therefrom. So airy looking and yet so strong, so apparently inadequate to discharge its mighty task, yet so thoroughly equal to the performance of its Herculean functions.
Nor can the same traveller have failed to notice one particular row of trim two storey built cottages facing the lines and only divided from it by the width of a muddy road and a row of trim looking ornamental flower gardens, laid out in beds of all shapes. Circles, diamonds, squares and parallelograms, with every variety of bordering. This row is the best row of cottages in Barrington and somehow or other, it leaves upon the mind of the passer by an impression that Barrington is really a model colliery village.
Much of this feeling is doubtless due to the neat appearance of the flower gardens in front of the row. Much of it is also to do with the pride which most of the inhabitants seem to take in keeping their windows clean and bright and hung with curtains of various materials and colours. From the whitest of muslin and leno up to the finest, most crimson of moreen or damask.
Another feature in connection with this row, which gives it a double interest to the passing stranger, is the appearance of one of its windows as the train flashes by of fair faces belonging to the dressmakers of the village, who with the natural curiosity of their sex, leave off stitching for a few minutes to gaze or perhaps wave a hand. Or waft a kiss to someone in the passing train, possibly causing some susceptible young hewer to wonder if Miss T----- wants another apprentice, or light porter, having no objection to fill the vacancy himself.
The houses in this row each contain four rooms, two on the ground floor and two above, one of the upstairs rooms being ceiled, the other immediately under the slates and in most cases used as a lumber room. At the back is a pantry attached to each house and further back still, at a distance of twelve or fifteen yards from the back door, are the ash pits, privies and piggeries. Which in their turn are backed up by the kitchen gardens for the dwellers in this row are both florists and horticulturists, with a strong predilection for big cabbages and prize leeks.
One digger in his garden takes advantage of a question of mine to rest himself upon the handle of his spade, while he answers, “Yis, sor, thor varry canny cottages i’ this raw, but then this is the only raw i’ the place fit to leeve in.” Further questions and I gather that the head viewer has been overhauling the condition of the place lately, considerable pulling down and building up being projected.
There are in all seven rows of cottages at Barrington, which may be broadly classified as one of stone, one of wood, one part wood and part brick, the remainder being of bricks, made in the Company’s own brick kilns out of the Company’s own clay.
Besides the row we have described, other two rows face the railway, but not having the flower gardens in front, do not look quite so stylish as the top row. With this exception, however, they look equally as well, but they are impostors, for they are little more than half the size of the swellish ones above and contain only one room down and one room up, their size being about 16 feet by about 15 feet. The space between these front rows and the back ones is considerable. The ground being taken up with rudely railed in gardens, a few trees and a number of pigstyes. To say nothing of the small stream which comes through the railway embankment, throwing up on its banks a rich mineral delta of small coals and waggon wheels.
The back rows of Barrington are slums indeed and can only be paralleled by a reference to the squares of Seghill or the back to backs of Killingworth. The two most “backerly” of the “raws” are very sorry affairs indeed. One is of wood, with the exception of the slate roof and the stone floor. It faces the backside of another row part of the houses of which are wood. The two rows are not very far apart and the little space there is between them is taken up with heaps of ashes, heaps of coal and cesspools of stagnant water.
Another row is built of brick upon the back to back principle, so that one little roof may be made to cover two average families. Here again, as in the wooden row we have just left, there are neither privies nor ashpits, so that the ashes and other house refuse have just to be thrown outside at so short a distance from the doors that in summer time it must be dreadful.
These wretched little back to backs are little more than fifteen feet square, have only the miserable unceiled garret up the ladder and yet are set apart an used as the habitations of families numbering as far as six or seven members. There is some drainage, too, at Barrington, but the drains are generally stopped up and the sinkholes are open in a dangerous manner.
The village school is no exception to the general rule of bad ventilation, for it is placed close behind the old row we have described and is only open on that side, so that there is no possibility of a through draught of air.
The water supply of Barrington is derived from two sources. First, the supply which is conveyed from Sleekburn Colliery in pipes is very seldom on and when on is only fit to use as slop water, not being fit, as a sooty hewer (fresh from the bowels of the earth) informed me, to boil “either tetties or even a pudden in, to say nowt o’ drinkin or myekin broth wid.”
The other source of supply is the water cart, which brings its water from a well near the old iron works, a good mile and a half away, to be retailed to Sleekburnians and Barringtonians at the charge of “a hapenny a skeelful.”
A walk across the waggon way brings us face to face with a neat, commodious Wesleyan Chapel, the sole synagogue of the place. There is no public house nearer than Choppington. And if the Wesleyans continue to do their duty their congregation will doubtless increase. The Primitives are also going ahead here and are like the Primitives at Scotland Gate making great efforts to raise funds for a chapel.
Better times, however, are in store for Barrington if projected improvements are carried out, for it is intended to pull down the old wooden row. Which is at present such an eyesore and build a new brick row upon a somewhat improved plan about forty yards further back, so as to leave more space between the rows.
We venture to hope, however, that more than this may be done when the work is in hand and that Barrington may be so improved as to make it worthy than it is now of the favourable notice of our friend the railway passenger.
26th April 1873
