The History of The Felling Band

Churchill was not describing The History of The Felling Band when he said it was "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" but he could have been.
That's just me saying that the history of The Felling Band is confused. The current Felling Band appear to be happy that their history started in 1873.

Per the Evening Chronicle "Starting out in the late 1800s the band was known as the Heworth Colliery Band when the mine near Gateshead was still open.

After the pit’s closure, the group became the Washington Glebe Band until 1972 when it changed names to the Felling Town Silver Band and later just Felling Band."
Well, howsabout this, describing 12 years earlier than the start date of 1873. Per Gateshead Council "The new (Windy Nook Mechanics) institute building was opened on 21st December 1861. Over 500 people sat down to tea, on that day, to celebrate. The Felling Band entertained..."
Or this, in Clarence R. Walton's book "Gateshead Memories & Portraits" describing a "do" at the Three Tuns, Sheriff Hill on Monday July 30th, 1832
"A good feed, sing-song and dancing was the order of the day.  The Felling Band was there in 'full blast' ".
So that's 41 years earlier than claimed

1832 (over 180 years ago) puts The Felling Band right at the forefront of brass band history per Dennis Taylor in his book "The Heritage of the North East Brass Band Movement".

 In that book Taylor believes that The Felling Band started in 1873 so he doesn't highlight that The Felling Band was right at the cutting edge. I may drop him a line and put him right.
If loyal Fellingites knew that The Felling Band was a leader in the field they might give it more support and find a home for the band in Felling rather than the band over the years having to find support/venue in Washington and now Birtley

Here's a video of the band at Wardley but I urge you to view the band playing at the Durham Miners Gala by clicking this link to the video
Next Performance?

The Felling Band Tour Dates & Tickets

Felling Pit Disaster Revisited

The Rev John Hodgson was heavily involved in the aftermath of the Felling Pit Disaster of 1812 and, against the wishes of the Pit Owners, carried out a full investigation and published a detailed report.

The report is published online and deals with the immediate aftermath and the long period that elapsed before all the bodies, except one which was never found, were recovered and interred. 
Being a man of the cloth, rather than a hard nosed mining accident investigator, the Rev Hodgson’s whole report is primarily about the loss of life and the suffering of the widows and orphans left behind.

He presumably didn’t want the most likely cause of the accident to be stated, lest it put the huge weight of human suffering, upon any persons who might have been responsible.
 It’s more than 200 years ago so I’m willing to state the most likely cause, in my view.


See William Pit, with its chimney, marked on the map in the upper right corner

Whatever we might think of the owners, the Brandling brothers and their partners, Felling pit was better than most. The William Pit’s primary purpose, you could say its only purpose, using its constantly lit furnace, was to draw out the foul air and discharge it high in the sky through its 40 foot high chimney, marked on this map.

That pit, as you can see was, opposite Woodbine Terrace at, what is now called the Q pit area of The Felling, which is a collective mishearing of Cube Pit.  The Rev Hodgson refers in the report to the Tube, which is an alternate word for the Cube which means the furnace system for drawing out the bad air.



The furnace, or Cube, is an expensive safety device, who’s effectiveness relies on the furnace (cube) always being lit, even when the pit is shut, sometimes on Saturdays and always on Sundays for if the furnace goes out the foul & explosive air accumulates underground. This accident happened on a Monday morning and when accidents in cube pits occurred on a Monday the cause was  mostly determined to be that the furnace (cube) was allowed to go out over the weekend. In this case the destruction underground was so great, with no one left to tell the tale, that who can say, other than the men scheduled to be on shift that weekend, whether or not the furnace had been allowed to go out.


Rev Hodgson says this at the end of his report

“I pass over the many theories and absurd suppositions invented to explain the cause of this calamity. The power that destroyed, raised and marshalled its forces in secrecy - it left no evidence to shew from what corner of the mine it issued out to battle. In its effects it indeed proved that it either availed itself of the delusive security, the inactivity, or the want of strength in the means employed to keep it in subjection: but let us, with that charity which "thinketh no evil," refrain from enquiry into causes which commenced and wrought in darkness, and concerning which the clearest information that can be collected will amount to little more than conjecture and uncertainty.”


“Phew” must have been the utterings of the weekend furnace men


One does wonder about the obelisk in Heworth churchyard which carries the date of Sunday 24th of May rather than the day of the accident Monday 25th of May. 
Was it an uncharacteristic mistake by the very precise Rev Hodgson or was it a breadcrumb of truth left by him to a future generation?




We Live in a Lumpy Place

That the Felling and Low Fell area is a lumpy place is revealed by current and past local place names in Christenings, Marriages and Deaths in Church records. Here's my lumpy address list starting at the Tyne in the Felling area and heading West to the Team

Snowdon's Hole
Goose Bank
Ballast Hills
Holly Hill
Bank Top
Nether Heworth (nether means low)
Over Heworth (High Heworth)
Highburn House
Low Leam
High Leam
Incline House
White Hill
Windy Nook
High Fell
Sod House Bank

Old Durham Road traversing the pinnacle of the Fell traveling North-South. The East West journey rises 600 feet up from The Team to here and then falls 600 feet down to the Tyne at Felling Shore

Sheriff Hill
Low Fell
Belle Vue Bank
Chowdene Bank
High Eighton
Low Eighton
Eighton Banks
Byker Hill
Loosing Hill
High Hills
Low Urpeth
The Mount
Pit Hill
Silver Hill

There's no doubt more. I'll try to add to the list

Something to Crow About

The top left bird is a crow, top right is a chow (aka chough) and the bottom centre one is a raven. They're very similar and belong to the same family..the crow family. They were common in the North East and are reflected in local place names..Split Crow Road and Crowhall Lane in The Felling, Chowdene Bank in Low Fell, leading down to Ravensworth Village and Castle

I've often seen questions posed on Facebook and elsewhere as to the origin of Split Crow Road. The Crow part comes from Crowhall and that likely comes from crows which flocked and nested in the area. The Split likely refers to the fact that it split away, at an unusual angle..see map below... from the then main road to Durham, now the Old Durham Road, and took the traveler through the countryside to Crow Hall and beyond. Most roads leaving the Old Durham Road do so, conventionally, at right angles

A Bit of History Revealed

. This is Felling High Street showing the position of Alnwick Cottage and Shields Cottages. They were built as cottages.

Printwise online occupy Shields Cottages. Underneath their sign is hidden this

It used to be on view at the time Peter Haywood published his book "Around Felling High Street" This pic is taken from the book

The other day, on the property just up from Shields Cottages a bit of fascia above the white door was removed to reveal this

Alnwick Cottage 1835 carved into the stone work. Per Peter Haywood's book..George Crawford of Low Felling,  along with Joseph Oliver, acquired this parcel of land. They built these as dwelling houses and the name was simply because Crawford was born at Alnwick. Later the ground floor rooms were converted to shops.

Immediately left of here is a very narrow passage separating this property from the set of four properties known as Costelloe's Building...look at the map again and you'll see that that space was previously occupied by the Old Poorhouse before the rich former mayor of Gateshead W. J Costelloe added to his other pawn shops in  Bensham and Gateshead High Street by adding one more in Felling.

J. G. Peters Having a Right Good Felling Whinge

This is an article in Heslop's Advertiser in 1935 bemoaning the fact that The Felling will be swallowed up by Gateshead, which of course it was...but not for nearly 40 years after this article with the implementaion of the Local Government Reorganisation of 1974

Today's Reminders of the Past-Sir Godfrey Thomson Court

Sir Godfrey Hilton Thomson (1881–1955)
another Famous Felling Fella
who was a critical pioneer in intelligence research.

He worked at Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne (a college of the University of Durham, England) from 1906 to 1925, before moving to theUniversity of Edinburgh from 1925 until 1951, where he was the Bell Professor of Education and Director of the Moray House Teacher Training College.

His research began in psychophysics, but he became best known for his criticism of Spearman’s general factor in intelligence.^[2] Pursuing this interest led to a major work on factor analysis of mental ability.^[3]

Thomson was also active in work on the relationship between intelligence and fertility, conducting some of the first nationally representative sample research, which demonstrated that this relationship was negative.^[4]

Thomson was president of the British Psychological Society in 1945-1946. He was knighted in 1949.