More on the Spinny
Following on from Peters article on The Spinney, more information has come to light from the excellent book Northumberland and Cumberland Mining Disasters by Maureen Anderson.
She recalls how one of those who escaped the disaster was Johnny Threw, his farther and two older brothers William and George were to die in the pit. Here is an extract from the book:
When William's body was recovered in his pocket was his candle-box on which he, with certain knowledge that death was hovering close by, had used a nail to engrave a message to his mother. Although this widow, as did many others, manage to survive on subscriptions for a period of time eventually the money would become depleted and she would have had to depend on her own labour for a means of support. A few years later after the disaster Reverend Leigh Richmond on a bible tour in the north when he heard the heart- rendering story of the box on which the message had been written, It was lent to him on the condition that if money any contributions were made because of his telling the storey and exhibiting the box the money was to go to the window. Eventually a sum of £16 10s was remitted to her. On Richmond's death Mrs Threw requested that the box be returned to her which was done. In about 1834 a travelling agent of the Sunday School Union of London, JR Wilson, borrowed the box on a similar understanding. Over three years a sum of £115 7s 3d was raised and paid to Mrs Threw at the rate of 5s a week and about £2 annual rent for a period of seven years. At the end of 1840 the funds were depleted and at the age of sixty-eight and unable to work the widow was destitute. She applied to the Gateshead Union and was allotted 2s a week but this was insufficient to pay her rent and keep her in food. An enterprising scheme was thought of to raise money for Mrs Threw and to bring to the attention of the public a reminder of the disaster. A pamphlet was printed in 1841 at the office of the Great Northern Advertiser and distributed to booksellers to be sold. The small publication related the storey of the tragedy and the message of a boy to his mother from beyond the grave.
'Fret not, dear mother for we were singing while we had time, and praising God. Mother, follow God more than ever I did'
On the other side of the the candle box which is supposed, must have been dictated by his farther, as it bears his signature, though he could not write:
'If Johnny is saved, be a good lad to God, and thy mother.
John Threw.'
Steve Elwood from http://www.skyscrapercity.com has a link to the publication which has been borrowed for you to read here:
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Place Names
Last month we gave ourselves an exercise to find out a little bit more about peculiar names towns or villages, here is a selection we looked at.
Scotswood
What sort of place was it? How did it get its name? How did the people who
lived there earn a living?
In 1367 Richard Scot the son of John Scot (who was a wealthy and influential merchant of Newcastle) obtained a licence to enclose and make a park of his wood, originally called West Wood, containing 200 acres - the enclosure of the wood was not popular with Richard Scot's neighbours which resulted in a great deal of quarrelling. ln 1375 Richard Scot accused his neighbour, William Delaval, of breaking into the park, felling trees, digging up coal and also stealing cattle to the value of £40. The outcome of this is not known. ln the late 1600s it was thought that Scotswood had got its name from when the Scots army camped there in 1644 during the Siege of Newcastle, but Richard Scot's enclosure clearly predates this. Scotswood was a rural and generally a peaceful place until the 1840s with the coming of heavy industry a brick works was set up by the Lister family and later taken over by the Adams family in 1903 to become famous as Adamsez Sanitary Ware. This closed in 1972. The area of Scotswood has now changed beyond recognition due the closure or contradiction of the heavy industry, closure of the pit and other works, demolition on a large scale of the local housing from the 1970s onwards.
By Dave Smith
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Prudhoe
(Northumberland)
An
Anglo-Saxon name meaning Prud's spur of land.
Quebec
(County Durham)
This
village near Esh Winning is one of a number of places in the North East which
take their names from other parts of the world. Quebec was a mining village and
apparently named because the fields in the area were enclosed in 1759, the year
General Wolfe captured Quebec from the French in Canada. It is not unusual for
fields to be named after foreign towns and places and often occurs where fields
were situated at a considerable distance from their home farm. Thus fields
could have names suggesting remoteness like Botany Bay or Nova Scotia. This
kind of name has also gained prominence in the North East because they were
topical names for nineteenth century coal mining or ironstone villages. North
East place names which may fall into this category include New York near
Whitley Bay, Toronto near Bishop Auckland, Philadelphia near Houghton le Spring
and Canada which is part of Chester-le-Street. California can be found in North
Yorkshire where it is part of the village of Great Ayton and is also found in
Cleveland as a district of Eston in Middlesbrough. When far off field names
were not available battles or places connected with the Boer War or Crimean War
could also provide a source for naming Durham's nineteenth century villages.
Thus we have Bloemfontein near Stanley, Portobello near Birtley from a Battle
of 1739, and Inkerman near Tow Law, named from the 1854 Crimean War Battle of
Inkerman. With imagination it is quite possible to travel the whole world
without leaving the North East.
Redheugh
(Tyneside)
A
corruption of Reed Haugh, the flat meadowland where reeds grew.
Romaldkirk
(County Durham)
Romaldkirk
is a picturesque little village, with a nearby stream called the Beer Beck. The
village is on the south bank of the River Tees in County Durham, but should
really be in Yorkshire. A huge portion of south Teesdale was taken from
Yorkshire and moved into County Durham during the local government reforms of
the 1970s. Only the north bank of Teesdale is truly County Durham. Romaldkirk
means the church of St Rumwald. The word Kirk is an alternative word for
church, used in northern England and Scotland. Romaldkirk's church known as the
cathedral of the dales is dedicated to St Rumwald, about whom we know very
little because of his short life. Rumwald was the son of a Northumbrian king,
and is said to have spoken on the very first first day of his life, crying out
the words I am a Christian. With such a miracle, there was no hesitation in
having the baby prince baptised, but despite his remarkable talent for learning
speech, he was unable to hold onto life and died of ill health two days later.
St Romwald's resting place is recorded as Buckingham, but there may be some
connection with Romaldkirk, which the history books have not recorded.
Roseberry Topping (Teesside)
There is
an old saying When Roseberry Topping wears a cap, let cleveland then beware of
a clap which is a recognition that the cloud-topped summit of this famous
landmark could result in a heavy clap or shower of rain. Roseberry Topping is
sometimes known as The cleveland Matterhorn because of its distinctive shape
and is steeped in local legend. In olden times the hill was closely associated
with the Vikings and the word Topping comes from Toppen an Old Danish word for
a hill. Roseberry is a corrupted name which derives in an unexpected way from
the nearby settlement of Newton-under-Roseberry. It is known that the original
Old Norse name for Roseberry Topping was Odins-Beorg meaning Odins Hill. Odin
was the most important Viking God and it is possible that Roseberry was a
centre for his worship in Pagan times. Over the years, the name Odinsberg
gradually changed to Othensberg, Ohenseberg, Ounsberry and Ouesberry.
Association with the village then called Newton-under-Ouseberry at the foot of
the hill led to the modern name Roseberry when the final R of under produced
the initial letter of the modern name. Newton under Ouseberry is now called
Newton under Roseberry. Incidentally the Norse God Odin is still remembered by
his alternative Saxon name of Woden from which the name of Wednesday (Wodens
Day) derives.
Rothbury
(Northumberland)
This means
Rotha's settlement.
Sadberge
(County Durham)
A stone on
Sadberge village green proclaims that Queen Victoria was Queen of Britain,
Empress of India and Countess of Sadberge. The description is accurate, as
Sadberge was once the name of a separate earldom stretching from Hartlepool to
Middleton in Teesdale and had its origin as a Viking wappentake. Wappentakes
were places where weapon taking Vikings would assemble to discuss the affairs
of the district. The name of Sadberge is Viking and derives from the Old Norse
Set Berg meaning flat-topped hill. Set Berg is a place name found in Iceland,
Norway and in Cumbria where it occurs in the form Sedbergh.
School
Aycliffe (County Durham)
Aycliffe
has a Saxon name meaning oak clearing - (Originally called Acley) and was a
felled area in a great oak woodland that stood in the district. Later part of
Saxon Aycliffe was acquired by a Viking called Scule who is remembered in the
name School Aycliffe. Scula or Scule was given extensive tracts of land in
south Durham by the Viking Ragnald, as a reward for military service in the year
920 AD. King Ragnald and his warrior general Scule were Irish Vikings who
invaded the north of England from their colonial base in Dublin, Ireland.
Ragnald seized York from the Danes and appointed himself king of all the
Vikings in Britain.
Stella (Tyneside)
The place
Stella which you mentioned 'was near Blaydon' is still near Blaydon and its
name derives from 'stelling' meaning a cattle fold. Stella had a colliery as
early as the sixteenth century and was one of the main collieries to supply
coal to Elizabethan London. It was the site of the Jacobean Stella Hall which
was once the home of the Tempest and Towneley families. In Victorian times it
was the home of the radical politician Joseph Cowen who once entertained
Garibaldi at the hall. The hall was demolished in 1953 to make way for a
housing estate.
Peterlee (County Durham)
Peterlee
is a new town built in 1948 to house miners from nearby villages in the
Easington district. The town is named after a former miner and trade union
leader called Peter Lee (1864-1935), who became the leader of England's first
all Labour County Council at Durham in 1909. Mr Lee was born at the local
colliery village of Trimdon Grange and started work at the age of ten as a pony
driver at Littletown Colliery near Durham City. In 1886 he emigrated to the
United States and worked in Ohio , Kentucky and Pennsylvania before returning
to County Durham in 1887. Peterlee town was named after Mr Peter Lee at the
suggestion of the former engineer and surveyor of Easington Rural District
Council, Mr C.W.Clark. The new town of Peterlee incorporates the site of an
ancient abandoned medieval village called Yoden which lay near to where the
Eden Lane playing fields are sited today.
Pity Me
(County Durham)
It has
been suggested Pity Me was the site of a small lake or 'mere' and that the name
means Petit Mere, Petty Mere or Peaty Mere. A more fanciful suggestion is that
St Cuthberts coffin was dropped here by wandering monks on their way to Durham.
The miracle working saint is said to have pleaded with the monks to be more
careful and take pity on him. Another suggestion is that Pity Me is the cry of
the Peewits (or Lapwings) which inhabit the area. Other Pity Mes can be found
in the north of England, including a small place near Barrasford in the North
Tyne valley, and a Pity Me near Bradbury in south Durham. The name of
Tynedale's Pity Me is said to be a corruption of the Celtic words Beddan Maes
meaning Field of Graves. There are a number of other theories for the Pity Mes
in Durham and Northumberland, but the most likely explanantion is that it was
used to describe poor quality farmland. It was therfore perhaps a field name
given by a farmer to help identify a particularly field that was difficult to
farm. Sometimes these fields are known as 'Fatherless Fields' for reasons which
I will leave to the imagination.
Unthank
(County Durham)
There are
a number of Unthanks throughout the north, the name comes from the Anglo-Saxon
Unthances, and refers to a farm once occupation by squatters.
Byker
(Tyneside)
A Viking
village (a by) near a kerr. Kerr was a Viking word for a marsh, suggesting that
the Vikings had to make do with poor quality land on Tyneside. Nearby Walker
means marsh or 'Kerr' near the Hadrians Wall.
County
Durham - Land of the Prince Bishops (County Durham)
Even
without the sub-heading Land of the Prince Bishops, the name County Durham is
very unusual because it is the only county in England which should be prefixed
with the word County, that is County Durham and not Durham County. Apart from
being a convenient means of distinguishing the county from the city of Durham,
the name is a throwback to the days when County Durham was officially the
County Palatine of Durham. The County Palatine was an almost separate realm
ruled by Prince Bishops. The Prince Bishops had virtually the same powers in
the County of Durham as the king had in the rest of England, although
ultimately it was the king who was responsible for appointing the bishops, as
their powers were not hereditary. The post of Prince Bishop came about in the
reign of William the Conqueror, who combined the political powers of the old
Earls of Northumbria (who at that time ruled between the Tees and Tweed) with
the ecclesiastical powers of the Bishop of Durham.The Prince Bishops were
responsible for looking after the king's interests in this far northern
territory and defended England from the Scots. The most powerful Prince Bishops
were the medieval bishops like Hugh du Puiset (Pudsey) and Bishop Anthony Bek.
Over the centuries their powers were gradually reduced, particularly when the
danger of Scottish invasion was no longer a threat. In 1832, on the death of
Bishop William Van Mildert, the few remaining vestiges of the Prince Bishops'
powers were handed over to the crown. See also Durham City.
Cullercoats
(Northumberland)
Culler
from Culfre - a pigeon or dove. The name means dove cots.
Gateshead
(Tyneside)
Gateshead
was at the head of the Roman Road which crossed the Tyne at this point. The
location of the place seems to explain the name, as the old northern word gate
meant road or way. Head of the road would seem a satisfactory explanation if it
were not for the Venerable Bede, who writing of Gateshead in Saxon times
described the place as Ad Caprae Caput. This name translates not as Gateshead
but as Goat's Head. The heads of goats and other animals were often fixed on
poles as the symbol of a meeting place. In 1080 Gateshead was used as a meeting
place by the first Prince Bishop of Durham William Walcher who, called a meeting
with his people at the site. They murdered him.
Haltwhistle
(Northumberland)
The name
of this Northumbrian town in the heart of Hadrians Wall Country would seem
straightforward enough and not surprisingly is often interpreted as a railway
station halt where locomotives blew their whistles. In the nineteenth century
Haltwhistle was certainly the site of a Victorian railway station but the name
is not in any way connected with this and is first recorded in the thirteenth
century as Hautwisel. There are two parts to the name the first haut is Old
French and means high ground. The second element is Twisel or Twisla and is a
word of medieval origin meaning a fork in a road or river. In the case of
Haultwhistle the twisla is a fork in the river where the River South Tyne is
joined by the Haltwhistle Burn. Haltwhistle is situated on high ground located
in the fork formed by the conjunction of the two watercourses. Other twisels in
the north include Twizel near Berwick, Twizle near Morpeth and Twizell between
Chester-le-Street and Stanley.
This is an extensive list from Peter Sutherland and duplicates in a small part the efforts of the rest of our group. Maureen supplied us with with a very good reference book called Place Names- From Abberwick to Yetlington by Ian Robinson listing places with origins from Vicking, Saxon, Norman and Flemish nationalities.
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Joan Teesdale has covered some of Peters efforts with Torronto and Quebec but here are a few that Joan covered.:
Philadelphia
Near Sherburn and Houghton-le-Spring villages. The village was named during the American War of Independence by a local colliery owner to commemorate the British capturing of the Americian city of Philadelphia. The village cricket field is named Bunker Hill after the battle in The American War of Independence. Other battle related place names are Portobello-Birtley after the Battle 1739 with Spain. Inkerman near Tow Low (1854 Crimea Battle).
Plawsworth
Plawsworth on the Great North Road between Durham and Chester-le-Street, although Plawsworth has a small colliery in 1647, it is not classed as a pit village. The name is first recorded in 1135, but dates from Anglo Saxon times, it signifies an enclosure for sports, games or amusement, the nature of play (Plaw) is unknown (worth) is Anglo Saxon for enclosure. Simon Vitulus, owner in 1100, provided greyhounds for hunting expeditions for Durhams Prince Bishops. Another previous landowner Plawsworth took their name from the village as was usual for family names to be taken from place names at the time.
A Roman road runs through Durham City and Plawsworth, its exact track is unknown, although it can be traced through Segefield and Shincliffe (South Durham) and even built up areas of Chester-le-Street and Gateshead
Joan leaves us with a cautionary note: If you visit Plawsworth Village you will need to cross the Great North Road to visit the Red Lion Pub, don't get drunk.
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Iris came up with additional names as follows:
Jarrow
Derived from Anglo Saxon word for marsh land.
Peterlee
Named after the celebrated local miners' leader PETER LEE
Benwell
Known as BYNNEWALLE in the 11 century which translates as " By the wall".
Thirlwell (Northumberland)
Thirwell is a weak point in Hadrians Wall were native tribes are said to have 'Thirled' through Roman defences.
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Val did extensive research into Seaton Sluice and is an article which deserves more space, hopefully for next month but here is the definition Val found.
Seaton Sluice
Seaton = cultivated land, farm settlement, village on a town beside the sea.
Sluice = a channel of water held by a sluice or lock gates.
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This was a great effort from everyone and shows what we can achieve as a group, lots of things planed for the summer but if you want to do some research it was suggested at our meeting that unusual pub names may well be worth doing.
Our next meeting will be held at the Hancock Museum, upstairs cafe 10.30 on 14 June. Please bring along your research or anything you might find that will interest us.
