Shildon history and stories

[Jude]

New Shildon was once more reknowned for the mines than the railway. Families came from Ireland and the Carlisle area for work in the South West Durham coalfields.

It was very common for some pit owners to pay the miners with coins or tokens specially made for each particular owner. These coins or tokens could only be spent in the shops belonging to the mine. Not only were the miners paid less but they could only spend at these shops who charged more than other local shops. (Miners at Dabble Duck pit worked under this system). Some of the shops in the now Redworth Road area belonged to the mine owners.

Other workers were paid slightly more than these miners but tended to spend their wages in the drinking establishments.

Timothy Hackworth was a very religious man and believed in treating his employees fairly which was unusual at that time (1800's). After moving to Shildon and creating the Soho Works, he not only built the cottages for him and his foremen but built good quality housing for his workers at Shildon.

Timothy Hackwork decided that he would only pay in cash and berated the mine owners who ran these systems.

It was said then that Shildon was a 'den of iniquity' with all the drinking establishments and the trouble which went them. The Irish workers were reknowned for drinking and fighting. Timothy Hackworth built chapels for their spiritual needs. He used to go into the rougher pubs to try and covert some of the inhabitants of Shildon. His workers had to sign 'the pledge' and abstain from alcohol.

[Jude]

The village name of NEW SHILDON was established by Timothy Hackworth and grew around his works and home. As the importance of the Stockton and Darlington Railway became more prominent, Old and New Shildon became Shildon Town.

After building the houses at the Soho Works,Timothy Hackworth houses for workers were built on a parcel of land after the British School (probably the old Essoldo Cinema), currently the triangle of land from Mill Street to Strand Street to Station Road, ending at the Masons Crossing. The Mason's Arms was a ticketing office for the railway. In 1858 the view from the Hackworth Cottages was a pleasant one as the inhabitants could see over the open countryside.

Other houses were built for workers at the railway company after Hackworth's death in 1850. Alma Road was built in the late 1860's and was named after The Battle of the Alma (20 September 1854). Adelaide Street was built in the 1860's and was named after Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (Queen Adelaide; 13 August 1792 – 2 December 1849). It is thought that Scott Street was named after a reverend minister, but this will need confirming by research at Durham County Council or at Sedgefield. The same would apply to Simpson Street.
Mill Street was so named as up to the 1870's there was a steam mill at the corner of what is now Mill Street and Soho Street.

[Jude]

The same Irish workers who had moved to to Shildon for the coal jobs, naturally stayed on as navvies when the railways began to expand. Others came afterwards for the new jobs. Anyone not finding lodgings in Shildon settled in Eldon and Eldon Lane where the largest contingent of Irish lived (Paddy's Row). The drunkenness continued throughout the Shildon area as these navvies had a lot of cash to spend. They earned more than a miner or early railman and earnings averaged about 30 shillings a week. They really worked incredibly hard for this good money. Their lodgings usually cost only about 9 shillings a week for bed and board so single navvies had plenty of cash to spend in the one evening (Saturday) and the one half day (Sunday to attend church) off a week they had. Full board in this case entailed bread and dripping and cold tea for 'bait' and a meal at night. Some married navvies still spent a lot of cash after sending some home to the families they left behind. The owners of Close House Farm decided to cash in on the new money coming into the area and houses were built there for the better off local and Irish families. This encouraged families to move from Ireland to be with their menfolk. Close House was originally swamp land and not much good for anything so a housing boom made the land valuble. The original Close House Farmhouse is still there, it is built into and part of the old Post Office building.

When the rail building work came to an end, many families stayed in the area. Any job was better than life than back in Ireland. Menfolk moved jobs to the pits and coke furnaces in Eldon, Auckland Park and the surrounding areas.

The rail line down to Eldon Lane enable coal to be taken straight to Shildon and then on to Port Darlington (or Middlesborough as it would become later). The river at Stockton was too shallow to take the ships needed to move coal so Port Darlington was built on mosquito infested swamp land which was drained to make a deep harbour.

[Jude]

Going back still further in time it was Lord Eldon who decided to block up one end of the Wear Valley to ensure no-one could steal his coal from his lands. He also wanted to make sure the river did not flood onto his land. The land at South Church was banked up to block the valley. From Auckland Park to Coronation is where the land has been built up from the spoil from the pits and then later the railways. Most people in the area do not know this, but look closely at the geography and it becomes obvious a valley has been cut in two.

Before the railways came to Shildon it was proposed in 1817 that a canal should be built to take coal from the Wear Valley to Stockton. This nearly got built but a lucky delay in funding meant that the railways took a foothold and the idea was then dropped.

[Jude]

Bits and pieces from Shildon's history:

Dean Gardens, Dean Close, Fulton Court and the other houses in that area are built on top of an old quarry (1865) and the old shaft off a pit which was there from the 1930’s until the late 1950’s (Drift Tunnel Colliery). This colliery was opened for the war effort.

Sunnydale Schools, Holly Hill and Coronation Avenue are built on the old Coronation, East End and Sunnydale Allotment Gardens.

Foundry Street is built on the site of the Phoenix Foundry, which had disappeared by the early 1890’s. Waverly Terrace behind Foundry Street was originally called Jacob’s Row. This name was no longer in use by the end of the First World War.

At the top of Waterloo Terrace and Princes Street was the Princes Street Colliery. This only operated from the late 1930’s until 1959. It was opened mainly to help the war effort.

Byerley Road was originally called Stock Lane and then was called Shildon Road until the late 1920’s.

Middleton Road and the Masonic Lodge did not exist until the 1930’s. The back of Simpson Street looked straight out onto the brickworks, which had been there for at least 80-100 years. The land stretching from the other side of Middleton Road, up to the schools was the old clay pit, which supplied the brickworks. Most of the houses in New Shildon were built with bricks from this yard.

[Jude]

Problem solved:

The beck runs from a series of wells which run parallell to the rec path (Surtees Ave.) which was the old railway line. The railway was built on the path of the old road as they needed to be near water for the trains. Before the steam engines ran properly on the line they were using horses to pull some carriages so needed a source of water for them also. There was a big well just at the back of the council offices. The bigggest well was a bit further down, beside a sandstone quarry. This would be under the rec roughly about where the swings and kids stuff is now. The wells have been culveted now and run out of the ground as a beck. They are behind Drybourne Avenue between the gardens and the tennis courts. (By the way - 'bourne' in Old English means river so you can see why it's called Drybourne.) Granville Avenue and Granville Close are directly over where the beck flows out from the ground and until the 1970's this area was called the 'Rises'.

The beck then sinks in drains under Middleton Road and runs under all the houses towards Hackworth Close. It then runs to Dabble Duck (remember, it's called this as the pits were always very wet). It runs under the railway line at the road bridge over the railway (Thickly). This part of the road was called Thickly Spout.

The drains then run alongside the track past the 1st old quarry(Thickly). The drains finish just before the 2nd quarry (Middridge).

This is why there is water opposite the tracks there. It's where the water raises to the ground again.

[Jude]

Where the water rises is the site of the sewerage works.
It then goes underground again for a short distance and rises again just before Aycliffe where it joins up with other streams, including Aycliffe's Woodland Burn and Johnny Best's Beck - which is really called Red House Beck.

[Jude]

Yes, the sewage from the houses mixes with the fresh water and comes out behind the tennis courts. There used to be 2 pipes coming out of the concrete under the bridge on the path going from the rec to Tin Tacks School. One was fresh, one was sewage. Sounds to me like the old drains have burst and need replacing. They will be made out of clay pipes as you know from your building experience.

They usually crack after time as the buildings above settle into the ground. Knowing Shildon council they would not have relaced them until it's too late!

[Jude]

Hackworth's rules for his workers

[Jude]

As I said earlier, he was a strict teetotaler, and a part-time preacher to boot.

[Jude]

Shildon was first recorded in Anglo-Saxon times when in AD 821 the estate was granted to the church. The village name is derived from the Old English word 'Sceld', meaning either shelf shaped hill or shield/refuge.

On the east edge of Brussleton Wood a portion of Dere Street Roman road remains and is representative of the long post Roman use of this section of road both as a street and as a boundary (from at least the 9th century).

In the 1800s Shildon was little more than a cross-roads with a scattering of houses. It was not until the arrival of mining and railways that the village evolved. Post-railway architecture includes: All Saints Church, St Johns Road (the two storeyed cottage of Timothy Hackworh, George Stevensons apprentice, is to be found here), etc.

The current list of historical Listed Buildings includes the viaduct, the Institute and the old Salvation Army building in Station Street.

[Jude]

There was massive industrial unrest from 1910 onwards. This period was the nearest that Britain has come to a full-scale revolution in the last few centuries.

With expanding industry in Germany and America, the country was in a period of decline which saw wages drop by 10% from 1900 to 1910. Continuing increases in the cost of living also reached endemic proportions. With the prospect of massive reductions in wages looming the workforce began to protest.

Strikes began with seamen and then dockers in Liverpool. By March 1911 the strikes had spread and over 700,000 people all over the country were involved.

A general national rail strike was called in 1911 on August 13th.

Shildon railwaymen came out on strike on August 17th for 8 days.

The stationmaster, Mr. Churchman was not happy with the strike and told off striking engine drivers. They all began to throw stones at him and chased him away. They threw more and more stones at the stationmasters house, the signal boxes and any trains driven by strike-breakers. The situation got so bad, the railway company and the local authorities had no other option than to call out the troops to restore order.

Please see photographs in the gallery of: Masons Arms 1911 - meeting of strikers and other photographs titled 1911.

[Jude]

On 3rd Oct 1882, James Simpson aged 30, was knocked down and killed by a locomotive and trucks. He was a Gatekeeper and was hit while opening the level crossing gates leading into the Shildon Lodge Colliery.