At a distance of six miles from
Newcastle, on the Morpeth Road, a small stone, bridge spans a tiny stream, which flows
lazily away to the eastward. The bridge
is that well-known halting place for travellers between Newcastle and Morpeth
known as the Six Mile Bridge, and the stream is the Seaton Burn, which gives
its name to the quaint old colliery village we have this week to describe. Six-Mile Bridge is described as a hamlet in
the township of Weetslade, Seaton Burn as a village in the same township. Six Mile Bridge, however, may be said to have
lost any separate identity that it ever possessed, and become merged In the
larger bulk of Seaton Burn, just as small streams sometimes become lost in
greater ones, leaving it difficult to determine where the one ends and the
other begins.
Seaton Burn is one of those colliery villages showing a great variety in the style of its houses, from the fact of its being a mixture of the old-fashioned colliery, and the new fashioned colliery styles, with a slight dash of the more substantial form of residence erected by country farmers and well-to-do village tradesmen. Another element in the composition of the village is supplied in the shape of a quantity of tenemented property, much of which is in a really wretched condition, worse in point of fact than any colliery property we have seen for some time back. Though there must have been a village here almost from time immemorial, the colliery of Seaton Burn is not a very old one when compared with the great originals of the county.
Sinking operations were commenced in March 1838, and first blood was drawn in June 1841, when coal was brought to bank. Since that time the pit has worked very regularly, and with a happy immunity from strikes or serious accidents. There is still a practically unlimited supply of coal remaining to be worked, and to all appearances there will be a pit at Seaton Burn a hundred years hence. The village has a population of from 1,300 to 1,400, and the miners employed on the colliery bear a high character in the coal trade. There is little mixture of men from different districts, and the people are somewhat proud of their pure Northumbrian descent.
As we enter Seaton Burn from the south we see close to the roadside a row of two storey houses. This is Bridge Street, so named from its nearness to the famous structure we have mentioned. These are miserable houses, and are rented by the occupants. Each house has two rooms, one on the ground floor and one above. Each of these rooms is occupied by a family, and somehow or other people manage to exist in them. We enter one on the ground floor to be nearly stifled with the heat and foul air, for there is no through ventilation here, and the woman of the house, who strange to say, looks hearty enough, assures us that “There’s ne call fur onny vapor baths in this place, fokes can git thim if they only stop in thor awn hooses.” This we can readily believe, for a few minutes inside have been sufficient to induce a state of unhealthy perspiration.
We go round to the back to reach the upper storey, and are confronted with the usual ash heaps and squalor so familiar at the backsides of our worst village rows. Up a flight of wooden steps, and at the top she doors of two adjoining rooms stand open. In one lives a large family, in the other reside a blacksmith and his wife; no better house was available when they came to the place, and since then poor souls, they have both been down with sickness. The one small upstairs room they live in has a close and sickly smell; it has no outside conveniences, but even such places as these must be paid for. Property here seems like wine, to increase in value as it grows older, and the occupants of such rooms as these are charged rents at the rate of 2s.3d. per week. Why, they should positively have something paid to them for living there.
Adjoining Bridge Street, and running at right angles from the road stand two rows of genuine colliery houses. The seven top houses of one of the rows are comparatively new, and built on the Dinnington plan, the others are much older, and when first built (some 15 years ago) must have been considered tolerably fair specimens of colliery houses. There is the narrow back kitchen as at Dinnington, which seems to have been an addition to the original structure, and a fair sized front room, which is also provided with a pot and oven. The upper storey is reached by a substantial ladder, and divided into two bedrooms, the windows of which are very small, and being immovable are very inconvenient, as they cannot be opened for ventilation. In front of the houses are good gardens which, just at this time of the year are in a high state of cultivation, nearly every one being in a state of preparation for the flower show, which is one of the best, If not indeed the very best, held in the colliery district. The space at the backside of the rows we have described is very limited, and there are the usual offensive ash heaps, lying unpleasantly near the pantry windows of both rows.
Near there is a barrack-like block of tenemented houses, with a family squeezed into every room. This block is inhabited by no less than thirteen families and to serve this small regiment there is provided at the back one small privy and one diminutive ashpit. The village school is situated near this delightful retreat, and it is quite in keeping with its surroundings. Old and totally inadequate to the educational requirements of the village is this ancient academy, which, built originally for a population of some five or six hundred, finds itself of a very mean capacity now that the population is nearly treble that number. Leaving the school, we tumbled quite unexpectedly upon a short row of old cottages, whitewashed, with tiled roofs, and the most tiny little dormer windows Imaginable. Quite like a relic of the middle ages are these little doll’s houses. They form two sides of a square, and in the centre of the angle are ash-heaps almost as large as the cottages.
A bluff Yorkshire woman here gives us permission to enter, and amid a savoury odour of boiled bacon and cabbage we view the interior of this primitive habitation. An Irishman gifted with a capacity for “bull” making, might, under the circumstances, have exclaimed, “Bedad, but the house is bigger widin than it is widout,” for it appears almost marvellous that so small a house should contain so large a kitchen. We suppose this feeling springs from the fact the house is all kitchen. There is indeed an attic above under the porous tiles, but no one cares to venture up the perilous ladder, so the family must be content with its brick floored kitchen. Our friend from Yorkshire is good-tempered, however - bacon and greens have evidently a tendency to produce contentment even under a sense of wrong, therefore she does not speak bitterly when she says, “Aye, thor nobbut loike dog kennels as yo may ca’ um, there’s aight foaks lives in the next ‘un. Thor not fit for dogs te lie in.” This was evidently a conclusion come to by this worthy woman after much rumination, and we quite agreed with her, for we know of several packs of hounds who would feel very much ashamed if their masters put them into such kennels to ‘lie’ in.
A broken-down pump marks another stage in our progress up the village, and then we come to another block of tenemented property standing pointing its gable end towards the road in a stand-and-deliver attitude has not been altogether assumed in vain. It does not get the money of the traveller, it is true, but then it stands a ten to one chance for the life of its inmates. The one-room system is here again in full force. The people of the room we enter are preparing to flit. “Weev leeved here ower Lang,” says the woman in charge, “an’ noo weer gan to try Blaydon.” This is evidently a wise woman, for though her house is the best in the block, if she stays much longer, the ceiling which, for some time past, has been coming down in “single spies,” will come down in “whole battalions” upon her.
A more ambitious block than any we have yet encountered since we crossed the bridge turns out to be the Seaton Burn branch of the Cramlington Society. A clock in front keeps time for the village, the shops and their appurtenances rival the parent store, and the rattle of a sewing machine indicates, by its heaviness, the closing of boots.
This is also the religious centre of the village, and within a short distance of each other are chapels for Wesleyans and New Connexion people, while the Presbyterians worship humbly in the village school. The Church of England is also represented in the village by the somewhat low, spireless edifice opposite the store, and though exteriorly it is somewhat low, some very high jinks are carried on inside. It seems only yesterday since this little church had its foundation stone laid by Mr. Palmer, but in a very little time Seaton Burn folk, who like their religion pure and unadulterated, have seen some very unevangelical capers performed there.
The incumbent of this little place must be a man of great versatility of character, for he can perform service very plainly at North Gosforth to the order of Mr. E. Smith, M. P., and then come over to Seaton Burn to go through a performance almost acrobatic in its character. We suppose a rope-walker who had served an apprenticeship under Blondin, or an acrobat who had studied posturing under any of the great masters, would be considered to have high presumptive claims to eminence in his profession, and would draw good houses.
But here at Seaton Burn merit of this description is not generally recognised, and an apprentice from the St. James’s training college for mountebanks at Morpeth, who far excels his honourable and reverend teacher in the rash daring of his flights, is compelled by an unappreciative public to perform to well-nigh empty benches. “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” however, and dissent flourishes in the village through the folly of ritualism.
Near the co-operative store, is the mechanics’ institute, which is miserably inadequate for such a village as Seaton Burn. With an evident desire to be economical of building materials, the founders of the institute have utilised one of the gable ends of a row of back-to-back cottages from which they have thrown out the necessary walls to form another house, and one half of the new edifice clinging like a humble parasite to the major structure is a mechanics’ institute, doing duty perforce as a place of mental exercise for some 70 or 60 members.
The other end of the teefall is a classroom for children. A better newsroom has been long promised by the owners, but the years go on and still there has been no foundation stone laid. One of the principal owners is great as a layer of foundation stones, and it says much for him that he has laid perhaps as many as any man in the North of England; we hope ere long to see him lay two more in the Seaton Burn district.
We now have in succession two rows of the old back-to-back style of colliery house, one room on the ground floor, which are several feet below the level of the North Road, and a partly ceiled attic up the ladder. These rows are destitute of privies, though a few subscription ashpits make matters a little more cheerful than they would otherwise have been.
At this part of our journey we hear of some mysterious insects which have taken up their quarters in the row, and under the designation of “beasties” overrun many of the houses. Nobody seems to know whence he or she came, what they are, or when they will go. They are anything but welcome, yet they make themselves quite at home. Slaughter seems only to increase their numbers, (for if one myriad is slain, another myriad swarms in to attend the funeral. They somewhat resemble the ant, but are much smaller in size and more nimble in their paces. They are for the time being objects of interest, and hints were thrown out to the effect that perhaps the mysterious, but erudite “Digamma” would be able “to reckon them up properly.” They seem quite sociable in their habits, and a glib-tongued housewife, who seems to have studied their little ways with much attention, dilated upon them much in the following strain, - “Thor the queerest animals I ivvor seed; thor aw ower the hoose, in the pantry just fair swarms wi’ them; for ye knaw thor just like worsels, and they like a bit flesh meat better than owt else.
They not only eat wor met, but they get inte the varry beds and sleep beside is. Luk ye aw mony time say te wor Geordie, yor ne man or ye wadn’t stop i’ the hoose beside sich things, bit we’re gettin used wi’ them noo, in dewent mind them se much as we did at forst.” Another speaker advances the opinion that “they cannot bear the cawd, an thit as sune is the frosty weather comes we’ll git clear, I’ thim.” We trust that this theory may be correct, and hope for an early frost to carry off these unwelcome little visitors.
Next our attention is called to two other rows much more comfortable than the ones we have just left, and though rather near to them, happily free from the plague of unwelcome insects. Each house in these two rows is provided with a roomy kitchen, behind which is a small back end, fit either for a sitting room or a bed room. Above is an attic of the same size as the kitchen which is ceiled, and thus made moderately comfortable as a bedroom. Two ashpits and two privies do duty for the whole of the row, but they are unfortunately situated in front, and thus the tenants of the house which maybe opposite then get the full benefit of any odours that may be wafted from either the ashpit or the common sink.
We have now reached the northern extremity of Seaton Burn to find the last row somewhat different from any we have yet seen. As to size and general design the houses are the same as the ones we have just left, but the attic up the ladder is unfortunately not ceiled, an omission which may easily be remedied. As it is, the attics are untenable, and useless for any purpose save that of lumber rooms, but there ought to be no difficulty about having them ceiled at once, so as to make them available as bed rooms.
As well as we are able, we have sketched the salient features of Seaton Burn, and have only to add that there is some private property in the village which is in a highly creditable condition, the different tenements being well arranged, airy and comfortable. It may be also mentioned that new colliery houses are in course of erection, and more are to be erected; in all cases, the Dinnington model being adopted, so that as the work of extension goes on it will also be the work of improvement.
We have already mentioned the Seaton Burn Flower Show in favourable terms, and in conclusion may say a few words respecting it. The society has been seventeen years in existence, and its object is to promote the cultivation of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, by the distribution of prizes to the most successful exhibitors. When the society first commenced operations Its funds were very limited, and, consequently, its prizes were small; but year by year it has gone on steadily improving, until now it is the boast of its members that they have the best show between Bishop Aukland and Alnwick. The rearing of prize flowers and vegetables is a healthy hobby, its development has been assisted to the fullest extent by the genial resident viewer of the colliery, and now the men of Seaton Burn and Dinnington vie with each other as to who shall do most to support the show. Wishing the committee a fine day for their show, large attendance, and satisfactory awards, we take our leave of Seaton Burn and Six Mile Bridge.
11th October 1873
Seaton Burn is one of those colliery villages showing a great variety in the style of its houses, from the fact of its being a mixture of the old-fashioned colliery, and the new fashioned colliery styles, with a slight dash of the more substantial form of residence erected by country farmers and well-to-do village tradesmen. Another element in the composition of the village is supplied in the shape of a quantity of tenemented property, much of which is in a really wretched condition, worse in point of fact than any colliery property we have seen for some time back. Though there must have been a village here almost from time immemorial, the colliery of Seaton Burn is not a very old one when compared with the great originals of the county.
Sinking operations were commenced in March 1838, and first blood was drawn in June 1841, when coal was brought to bank. Since that time the pit has worked very regularly, and with a happy immunity from strikes or serious accidents. There is still a practically unlimited supply of coal remaining to be worked, and to all appearances there will be a pit at Seaton Burn a hundred years hence. The village has a population of from 1,300 to 1,400, and the miners employed on the colliery bear a high character in the coal trade. There is little mixture of men from different districts, and the people are somewhat proud of their pure Northumbrian descent.
As we enter Seaton Burn from the south we see close to the roadside a row of two storey houses. This is Bridge Street, so named from its nearness to the famous structure we have mentioned. These are miserable houses, and are rented by the occupants. Each house has two rooms, one on the ground floor and one above. Each of these rooms is occupied by a family, and somehow or other people manage to exist in them. We enter one on the ground floor to be nearly stifled with the heat and foul air, for there is no through ventilation here, and the woman of the house, who strange to say, looks hearty enough, assures us that “There’s ne call fur onny vapor baths in this place, fokes can git thim if they only stop in thor awn hooses.” This we can readily believe, for a few minutes inside have been sufficient to induce a state of unhealthy perspiration.
We go round to the back to reach the upper storey, and are confronted with the usual ash heaps and squalor so familiar at the backsides of our worst village rows. Up a flight of wooden steps, and at the top she doors of two adjoining rooms stand open. In one lives a large family, in the other reside a blacksmith and his wife; no better house was available when they came to the place, and since then poor souls, they have both been down with sickness. The one small upstairs room they live in has a close and sickly smell; it has no outside conveniences, but even such places as these must be paid for. Property here seems like wine, to increase in value as it grows older, and the occupants of such rooms as these are charged rents at the rate of 2s.3d. per week. Why, they should positively have something paid to them for living there.
Adjoining Bridge Street, and running at right angles from the road stand two rows of genuine colliery houses. The seven top houses of one of the rows are comparatively new, and built on the Dinnington plan, the others are much older, and when first built (some 15 years ago) must have been considered tolerably fair specimens of colliery houses. There is the narrow back kitchen as at Dinnington, which seems to have been an addition to the original structure, and a fair sized front room, which is also provided with a pot and oven. The upper storey is reached by a substantial ladder, and divided into two bedrooms, the windows of which are very small, and being immovable are very inconvenient, as they cannot be opened for ventilation. In front of the houses are good gardens which, just at this time of the year are in a high state of cultivation, nearly every one being in a state of preparation for the flower show, which is one of the best, If not indeed the very best, held in the colliery district. The space at the backside of the rows we have described is very limited, and there are the usual offensive ash heaps, lying unpleasantly near the pantry windows of both rows.
Near there is a barrack-like block of tenemented houses, with a family squeezed into every room. This block is inhabited by no less than thirteen families and to serve this small regiment there is provided at the back one small privy and one diminutive ashpit. The village school is situated near this delightful retreat, and it is quite in keeping with its surroundings. Old and totally inadequate to the educational requirements of the village is this ancient academy, which, built originally for a population of some five or six hundred, finds itself of a very mean capacity now that the population is nearly treble that number. Leaving the school, we tumbled quite unexpectedly upon a short row of old cottages, whitewashed, with tiled roofs, and the most tiny little dormer windows Imaginable. Quite like a relic of the middle ages are these little doll’s houses. They form two sides of a square, and in the centre of the angle are ash-heaps almost as large as the cottages.
A bluff Yorkshire woman here gives us permission to enter, and amid a savoury odour of boiled bacon and cabbage we view the interior of this primitive habitation. An Irishman gifted with a capacity for “bull” making, might, under the circumstances, have exclaimed, “Bedad, but the house is bigger widin than it is widout,” for it appears almost marvellous that so small a house should contain so large a kitchen. We suppose this feeling springs from the fact the house is all kitchen. There is indeed an attic above under the porous tiles, but no one cares to venture up the perilous ladder, so the family must be content with its brick floored kitchen. Our friend from Yorkshire is good-tempered, however - bacon and greens have evidently a tendency to produce contentment even under a sense of wrong, therefore she does not speak bitterly when she says, “Aye, thor nobbut loike dog kennels as yo may ca’ um, there’s aight foaks lives in the next ‘un. Thor not fit for dogs te lie in.” This was evidently a conclusion come to by this worthy woman after much rumination, and we quite agreed with her, for we know of several packs of hounds who would feel very much ashamed if their masters put them into such kennels to ‘lie’ in.
A broken-down pump marks another stage in our progress up the village, and then we come to another block of tenemented property standing pointing its gable end towards the road in a stand-and-deliver attitude has not been altogether assumed in vain. It does not get the money of the traveller, it is true, but then it stands a ten to one chance for the life of its inmates. The one-room system is here again in full force. The people of the room we enter are preparing to flit. “Weev leeved here ower Lang,” says the woman in charge, “an’ noo weer gan to try Blaydon.” This is evidently a wise woman, for though her house is the best in the block, if she stays much longer, the ceiling which, for some time past, has been coming down in “single spies,” will come down in “whole battalions” upon her.
A more ambitious block than any we have yet encountered since we crossed the bridge turns out to be the Seaton Burn branch of the Cramlington Society. A clock in front keeps time for the village, the shops and their appurtenances rival the parent store, and the rattle of a sewing machine indicates, by its heaviness, the closing of boots.
This is also the religious centre of the village, and within a short distance of each other are chapels for Wesleyans and New Connexion people, while the Presbyterians worship humbly in the village school. The Church of England is also represented in the village by the somewhat low, spireless edifice opposite the store, and though exteriorly it is somewhat low, some very high jinks are carried on inside. It seems only yesterday since this little church had its foundation stone laid by Mr. Palmer, but in a very little time Seaton Burn folk, who like their religion pure and unadulterated, have seen some very unevangelical capers performed there.
The incumbent of this little place must be a man of great versatility of character, for he can perform service very plainly at North Gosforth to the order of Mr. E. Smith, M. P., and then come over to Seaton Burn to go through a performance almost acrobatic in its character. We suppose a rope-walker who had served an apprenticeship under Blondin, or an acrobat who had studied posturing under any of the great masters, would be considered to have high presumptive claims to eminence in his profession, and would draw good houses.
But here at Seaton Burn merit of this description is not generally recognised, and an apprentice from the St. James’s training college for mountebanks at Morpeth, who far excels his honourable and reverend teacher in the rash daring of his flights, is compelled by an unappreciative public to perform to well-nigh empty benches. “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” however, and dissent flourishes in the village through the folly of ritualism.
Near the co-operative store, is the mechanics’ institute, which is miserably inadequate for such a village as Seaton Burn. With an evident desire to be economical of building materials, the founders of the institute have utilised one of the gable ends of a row of back-to-back cottages from which they have thrown out the necessary walls to form another house, and one half of the new edifice clinging like a humble parasite to the major structure is a mechanics’ institute, doing duty perforce as a place of mental exercise for some 70 or 60 members.
The other end of the teefall is a classroom for children. A better newsroom has been long promised by the owners, but the years go on and still there has been no foundation stone laid. One of the principal owners is great as a layer of foundation stones, and it says much for him that he has laid perhaps as many as any man in the North of England; we hope ere long to see him lay two more in the Seaton Burn district.
We now have in succession two rows of the old back-to-back style of colliery house, one room on the ground floor, which are several feet below the level of the North Road, and a partly ceiled attic up the ladder. These rows are destitute of privies, though a few subscription ashpits make matters a little more cheerful than they would otherwise have been.
At this part of our journey we hear of some mysterious insects which have taken up their quarters in the row, and under the designation of “beasties” overrun many of the houses. Nobody seems to know whence he or she came, what they are, or when they will go. They are anything but welcome, yet they make themselves quite at home. Slaughter seems only to increase their numbers, (for if one myriad is slain, another myriad swarms in to attend the funeral. They somewhat resemble the ant, but are much smaller in size and more nimble in their paces. They are for the time being objects of interest, and hints were thrown out to the effect that perhaps the mysterious, but erudite “Digamma” would be able “to reckon them up properly.” They seem quite sociable in their habits, and a glib-tongued housewife, who seems to have studied their little ways with much attention, dilated upon them much in the following strain, - “Thor the queerest animals I ivvor seed; thor aw ower the hoose, in the pantry just fair swarms wi’ them; for ye knaw thor just like worsels, and they like a bit flesh meat better than owt else.
They not only eat wor met, but they get inte the varry beds and sleep beside is. Luk ye aw mony time say te wor Geordie, yor ne man or ye wadn’t stop i’ the hoose beside sich things, bit we’re gettin used wi’ them noo, in dewent mind them se much as we did at forst.” Another speaker advances the opinion that “they cannot bear the cawd, an thit as sune is the frosty weather comes we’ll git clear, I’ thim.” We trust that this theory may be correct, and hope for an early frost to carry off these unwelcome little visitors.
Next our attention is called to two other rows much more comfortable than the ones we have just left, and though rather near to them, happily free from the plague of unwelcome insects. Each house in these two rows is provided with a roomy kitchen, behind which is a small back end, fit either for a sitting room or a bed room. Above is an attic of the same size as the kitchen which is ceiled, and thus made moderately comfortable as a bedroom. Two ashpits and two privies do duty for the whole of the row, but they are unfortunately situated in front, and thus the tenants of the house which maybe opposite then get the full benefit of any odours that may be wafted from either the ashpit or the common sink.
We have now reached the northern extremity of Seaton Burn to find the last row somewhat different from any we have yet seen. As to size and general design the houses are the same as the ones we have just left, but the attic up the ladder is unfortunately not ceiled, an omission which may easily be remedied. As it is, the attics are untenable, and useless for any purpose save that of lumber rooms, but there ought to be no difficulty about having them ceiled at once, so as to make them available as bed rooms.
As well as we are able, we have sketched the salient features of Seaton Burn, and have only to add that there is some private property in the village which is in a highly creditable condition, the different tenements being well arranged, airy and comfortable. It may be also mentioned that new colliery houses are in course of erection, and more are to be erected; in all cases, the Dinnington model being adopted, so that as the work of extension goes on it will also be the work of improvement.
We have already mentioned the Seaton Burn Flower Show in favourable terms, and in conclusion may say a few words respecting it. The society has been seventeen years in existence, and its object is to promote the cultivation of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, by the distribution of prizes to the most successful exhibitors. When the society first commenced operations Its funds were very limited, and, consequently, its prizes were small; but year by year it has gone on steadily improving, until now it is the boast of its members that they have the best show between Bishop Aukland and Alnwick. The rearing of prize flowers and vegetables is a healthy hobby, its development has been assisted to the fullest extent by the genial resident viewer of the colliery, and now the men of Seaton Burn and Dinnington vie with each other as to who shall do most to support the show. Wishing the committee a fine day for their show, large attendance, and satisfactory awards, we take our leave of Seaton Burn and Six Mile Bridge.
11th October 1873
