Sunniside Local History Society
 

Book and DVD Launch

 

On Saturday 22nd August 2009 at exactly 1230pm The Dunston Silver Band struck up at Laburnum Grove Sunniside to march down to Sunniside Social Club to mark the beginning of the book/DVD launch 'Like Carrying Coals to Newcastle' and 'Pontop Pike to the Tyne'.

We were again most grateful to our Member of Parliament Dave Anderson for bringing us a Coal Mining Banner, assembling it for us and marching proudly in front of it.


 

The band turned into the side of Sunniside Club and continued to play at the main entrance. A crowd gathered to enjoy the music including a number of small children.


 

Following the showing of the DVD 'From Pontop Pike To The Tyne & The Colliery Villages Along The Way. Photographed on the left,Mr Tony Forster the Secretary of Sunniside Social Club presented Dave Anderson MP with Honorary Life Membership of the Club, The first time this honor has been awarded.

Photographed on the right, Colin Douglas Society Chairman presented Dave Anderson MP with Honorary Life Membership of the Sunniside History Society.


 

The Dunston Silver Band entered the room and continued to play to a very appreciative audience


 

The entire event was a resounding success, it was agreed by all that we had hired an excellent band. It was appropriate that the band came from Dunston the village at the end of our chain.


 

On Friday 4th September 2009 a further publicity launch took place at BEAMISH MUSEUM with special guests including Beamish Director Richard Evans, the Mayor of Gateshead, Dave Anderson MP, Richard Evans, Representatives from Gateshead and Durham Libraries, Representatives from GVOQ and other local organisations.

The event was extremely successful and has lead to an immediate surge in sales from a wide range of organisations listed below.


 

From Pontop Pike to the Tyne When the Sunniside & District History Society began the Waggonway Project we took a collective and conscious decision to ensure that the book and DVD differed in format. At one time waggonways spread across our region similar in construction to a spiders web. For this DVD content we selected sections which would be of particular interest to our members and the wider community. We filmed and conducted on site interviews following the route which linked our chain of collieries and villages from Pontop Pike to the River Tyne. It is highly unlikely that a similar project could ever be repeated, nature is gradually reclaiming the ground, the waggonway routes and colliery sites are disappearing. We are therefore very pleased that we have completed the project and amassed an archive film record as a permanent reminder of that most important part of our heritage. In constructing the DVD approx. one hour long, we relied on the local knowledge and experience of friends and colleagues who allowed us to interview them on site, we are grateful to Hylton Marrs, Ernie Yard, Tom Hall, Joan Hudson and the late Albert Hodd for giving us of their time and patience.

Noel Adamson & Francis G Newman


 

Our local Member of Parliament Dave Anderson (pictured) takes a great interest in the activities of our History Society. He was kind enough to introduce the DVD whilst standing in front of the coal mine at Beamish Museum. He also introduced the book and without his help throughout the project, it is a fact that the launch day would not have been such a resounding success. In recognition of his support Dave was presented with Honorary Life Membership of the Society. In recognition of his hard work in the community Dave was also presented with Honorary Life Membership of Sunniside Social Club, the first man to achieve that honor.


 

The North-East, and especially the area around Whickham, Sunniside, Tanfield, Marley Hill, and Beamish has a long and rich industrial heritage, particularly in those activities associated with extracting, transporting, and utilising coal. Over a period of some 500 years, the entire area became covered with mining activity and associated industries; and was criss-crossed by the vital transport links needed to shift the coal from the pits to the river Tyne. This A4 size book, written by two local amateur historians, and the accompanying DVD provides a detailed account of one particularly famous transport link – the Tanfield Way. This route started life as a simple wain road used by pack animals, then became a wooden waggonway, and ended its days as a bustling railway. A small section - the ‘Tanfield Railway’ has now been restored and is a thriving tourist attraction. Incorporating some new research and a wealth of photographs and illustrations (some never reproduced before) this account covers the development of coal extraction and transportation in the area, and focuses on some of the individuals who were responsible for driving forward the technological, industrial, and social changes that enabled the North-East to become one of the richest coal producers and exporters in the World.

We would like to pay tribute to our publisher Andrew Clark Summerhill Books, PO Box 1210, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE99 4AH. Email: andrew_clark@hotmail.co.uk

His hard work above and beyond his duties, his expertise, and willingness to help at all times made our task much easier.

THE BOOK/DVD CAN BE PURCHASED AT NEWCASTLE CITY LIBRARY, GATESHEAD CENTRAL LIBRARY, INCLUDING WHICKHAM LIBRARY, DUNSTON LIBRARY, ROWLANDS GILL LIBRARY. DURHAM COUNTY LIBRARY, INCLUDING STANLEY, CONSETT AND DURHAM CLAYPORT MILLENIUM PLACE. AT NORTHERN HERITAGE, SUNNISIDE SOCIAL CLUB, SUNNISIDE POST OFFICE, NEWCASTLE ARTS CENTRE, ROBINSONS IN THE GRAINGER MARKET NEWCASTLE, THE WOODHORN MINING MUSEUM, BEAMISH MUSEUM, THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM NEWCASTLE, STEVENS (EVENING CHRONICLE) SHOP, FRONT STREET STANLEY AND THE POST OFFICE AND GENERAL DEALERS THE LEAZES, MARTINS NEWSAGENT & POST OFFICE OAKFIELD ROAD WHICKHAM.

THE BOOK/DVD SOLD OUT OF OUR FIRST PRINT IN RECORD TIME WITH ENQUIRIES STILL FLOODING IN REGARDING THE AVAILABLITY OF THE PRODUCT.


 

There is a resurgence of interest in our first books, probably prompted by the release of our new publications, with sales led by Northern Heritage. The books merited reprint some time ago and continued to sell in moderation, but we are now receiving increasing enquiries about the availability of all three. Our Libraries stock all three at £9.99 per copy.

In July 2016 we received the following letter from a lady named Hazel who now lives at Northwood. She has just received one of our books ‘Byermoor, Marley Hill & Sunniside’. It is gratifying to know that people like Hazel get so much pleasure out of reading our books.

Dear Sunniside History Society

By the wildest of wild coincidences, the other day I met Theresa, supervisor of the local “Live at home” group, who said she came from Durham and asked where I did. I told her it was from some mining village that nobody had ever heard of, outside of Newcastle called Marley Hill. Not only did she know Marley Hill but all the places round about, her uncle had worked there and written a history on the district. Next time we met was by arrangement and she gave me a copy of the book edited by F.G. Newman and your society. Is that by any chance the Uncle mentioned above? Anyway since then I’ve been revelling in all the memories I have of the place and my childhood, memories I never knew I had.

There is no mention of my father, John Straker-Nesbit, who was manager of Marley Hill and Byermoor until his death in 1929, but there is mention of my mother’s family, Berkley. My grandfather Philip lived at the big house at High Marley Hill until he died in 1909. Born in 1831, I’m wondering if or what relationship there is between him and the John Berkley mentioned on p4 of the book? We lived at Redlands, just at the west of Marley Hill school and my father built an Italian garden on the side of the house away from the road, 2 lots of semi-circular steps, crazy paving and a pool fed by a field drain. Lots of discussion whether it should be dedicated to gold fish and water lilies or the children and the children got it. It was always cold but that didn’t matter. Beyond the garden wall in the cornfield, a corncrake would appear every year, waking us up each morning with its croaking call. How many people today have even heard a corncrake, let alone seen one?

There is a picture of Ravensworth Castle, p110, where I went to school until it was suddenly closed down during the Easter holidays of 1928, but there is no mention of the fact that, during the General Strike of 1926, the cobs and ponies were brought up and put to graze in the Park. We used to go there every Sunday morning to check on their welfare and took lumps of sugar for the friendly ones.

I was driven to school every morning by George Pyles p60 in his pony and trap to the lodge gate where I was picked up by the Reichwalds with their 3 children because they had A CAR! They lived at Whaggs House.

There is a mention of the vicar, Mr Arbuckle, p69, and I remember when he came to afternoon tea one day he offered me a sixpence as a treat. Reluctantly I refused. I had been told never to accept money from strange men. We were also very friendly with Father Austin Pickering, p18, of Byermoor and his 2 cousins, Father Leo in Dunston??? And Father Wilfred somewhere out Stanley way.

As regards the district, I remember Metal Bank p101, where we’d all meet for sledging in the winter. Pit Road, leading off to the left going up Church Bank. It was always “arl clarts (all mud)”. The Post Office where we used to get our National Savings stamps, the Winding House where the operator once let me work the cages (it wasn’t till later that I remembered that his hand was on top of mine all the time!) I remember too the huge bonfire built to celebrate the end of WW1, built in 1919 (p34). That picture shows the men in front of it to give it scale, I believe that now in the possession of my nephew, in the old family photo album there is the same bonfire with the children in front. We were all given mugs. I was allowed up very late to see it from the window.

Reverting to High Marley Hill House, it was empty when I knew it but there was a certain window we could leave open and go there to play. Play was so much more just then, climbing trees and damming the stream in Beckley Woods, picking blackberries etc, arriving home with mucky hands and feet and grazed knees and elbows- nothing that hot water and soap and a dab of ointment couldn’t put right.

Now these are just the memories of a child born in May 1915 (yes, 101 years ago if your arithmetic is good enough to work that out with a computer!) not the erudite history gleaned by F.G. Newman and you but they might serve as a background to what went on in the early years of the 1900s. The time when my father took me down the pit while he inspected the new shaft being chopped from, I think, the Busty seam to Brockwell, I had a lovely time with the ponies. Those were the days.

Yours, with complete sincerity,

Hazel Garnett-Peacham.