Today's Reminders of the Past..Coach Road from Leam Farm to North Leam Farm to High Heworth Farm

The Wylam family had three farmhouses at High Heworth Farm (former peae pudding factory, now a church), Leam Farm (still a house) and North Leam Farm, known in later times as Major English's house, but now long gone. However what remains is the magnificent coach road between the three.

The Leam Farm House is the buiding in the bottom right hand corner. The North Leam Farm House was in the round..ish green area in the middle of the picture and the High Heworth Farm House is off the picture at the top left

Here's my pics of the route starting on Leam Lane

This from the Farm field..the red is the bus stop shelter

This the entrance to the walk on Leam Lane

Isn't it magnificent, even now?

The big green area on the right is where North Leam Farm House was

This is the section after crossing Wealcroft

Today's Reminders of the Past. Post Box on Felling High Street

The post box is now outside the Felling Hub but how long has it been there? Before the Hub it was the Greyhound pub, which by this photo had become Roys, Furnishers

It's been on the High Street since the period 1901-1910 because this

is the Royal Cypher of Edward VII who was on the throne in that period
But this, or an earlier box was on the other side and further down. It was outside Walter Willsons shop that was created out of the Methodist Chapel

You can't tell from this pic that it was at that location but you can judge it by the shops on the other side. The two dormer windows near each other are just down from Costelloes, later Sauls..indeed you can see the three pawnbrokers balls on this pic

Its bigger than it was when it was first installed by virtue of the 30 or so layers of red and black paint it's had applied to it over the past 110 years!

Today's Reminders of the Past...Shadon's Hill

This is the first in a series of things that are reminders of the past that you see everyday in The Felling and neighbouring districts.

Let's start with Shadon's Hill which featured big style in the miners', including Felling miners, struggles over many years to get decent wages and working conditions from the uncaring mine owners. In 1831 local lad Thomas Hepburn was prominent in the creation of a collective voice to get better conditions. Sometime later he was sacked to silence him and he lived on the breadline, selling tea, until given a job at Felling pit provided he did not involve himself in union matters again.

On 2nd March 1844 there was a mass meeting of 20,000 men who gathered on Shadon's Hill. A month later another 40,000 men accompanied by bands and banners mass met on Shadon's Hill and there were further mass meetings in that place in that year.
Shadon's Hill was twice used for Coronation/Jubilee bonfires... Diamond Jubilee Celebrations 1897 and The Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 . See pics here

So where is Shadon's Hill? You'll have passed it a thousand times

This is a photo of The Ship at Eighton Banks taken by me standing on Shadon's Hill. Over the back of the Ship is Blackim Hill...stand by for another posting on that and another on the near meeting of two waggonways in this locality

Here's another from Shadon's Hill.

When driving on the main thoroughfare thro' Eighton Banks passing the Engine Room, formerly the Lambton Arms on the left and at the defunct level crossing you turn 90 degrees to the right to drive down past the entrance road to the Bowes Incline on the right and on the left, before you get as far as the fishing lake on the right, you'll see Shadon's Hill. Next time you pass just imagine 40,000 men from the Durham and Northumberland coal mines gathered on that hill trying to fight for decent wages and conditions
To read about the strikes in greater detail go here

Derivation of the name of The Felling

Allen Mawer
This is the man who in 1920 got wrong the derivation of the place name "Felling"...in my view

He was born in London and in 1920, for a few years only, he was an administrator at Durham University, before moving on to Liverpool and ultimately returning to his native Smoke.
He got it wrong because he was not a local nor was he a hillwalker. Had he been a hillwalker he would surely have gone to the Lake District where he would have indulged in fellwaking following the famous book "Fellwalking with Wainwright". Only in this northern part of England and a bit of Scotland do we use the word "fell" for a spongy bleak hill, that the rest of the country calls a moor.
His book on the place names of Northumberland and Durham is online and I have read it from cover to cover. He has the well known item on The Felling but he does not deal with Low Fell, High Fell or Pelton Fell
This is his Felling entry on Page 83 continuing on to Page 84

That's all he says
He is an expert on place names and you can be certain therefore that if he knew the Northern word "fell" he would have had to discuss it, even if he then discounted it and favoured the silly notion that it was about trees being felled. The Oxford dictionary says that a fell is "a hill or stretch of high moorland, especially in northern England" and I am as certain as I can be that, had he known the word 'fell' as a stretch of high moorland and had he physically left his Durham University and came to The Felling travelling uphill from Birtley and downhill to The Felling he would not have written the Felling entry as he did. Of course even in 1920 he would not have been able to discern that it was fell land but he could have read Thomas Wilson's poem about the building of the New Durham Road in 1826 which contains this line "Then reet ower the Fell, and by Carter's famed well.."
Or he could have read John Wesley's  accounts of his preaching visits to Gateshead and The Felling in the 1770's when he deplored one journey in the bleak of winter but on another occasion admired the views he got from crossing The Fell. Or he could have read the Trade Directories which listed The Felling, The High Fell and The Low Fell. As you can see from Mawer's entry he was clearly influenced by the fact that the locals called it..and still do... The Felling but he did not know that the locals also said The High Fell and The Low Fell...and still do in relation to the New Durham Road which to this day is referred to as ...The Fell. When someone says "last night I was drinking on The Fell everyone knows that they are referring to the pub circuit on Durham Road (and including Beaconsfield Road and Kells Lane)
You may read the entry or indeed the entire online book here
This blog entry compliments my first piece on the subject here. This blog is to further assert my view which has been strengthened by reading Mawer's entire book
(David Mills in his 'A Dictionary of British Place-Names' has gone with Mawer's explanation. I may have to read it cover to cover to see whether he knows the word 'Fell' as a 'Moor' See here where Chas C Taylor, a local historian and place name expert does not go along with Mawer

 

Robert Sisterson..Felling's Most Photographed?

Was Robert Sisterson, a Famous Felling Fella, in his time,  the most photographed man in The Felling?

Back row 2nd from left

Front row 6th from left

Front, 5th from right, seated, and highlighted below

That's him on the right

That's him on the left (not counting the horse)

Or is he just the most distinctive?