Heddon-on-the-Wall Local History Society
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  • Heddon 3D landscape

Jenny Pit (Heddon on the Wall)

4/7/2024

1 Comment

 
A recent interest of mine has been in using LIDAR for archaeology research and as part of this I've been looking again at my local area.
Picture
Jenny Pit, Heddon on the Wall. LIDAR (DTM 1m) © Environment Agency 2022.
One of the features that has caught my eye is a LIDAR Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of the disused Jenny Pit which is located at NZ143662, just SE of Heddon Hall. Heddon Hall was named Mount Pleasant on the 1st edition 6" OS map. The old coal pit lies on Heddon land but just west of the boundary with Throckley.

I have always considered it likely that some of the early waggonways to the many coal pits on the east side of Heddon parish may have crossed the Throckley boundary to connect up with the changing routes of Throckley waggonways leading eventually to the staiths at Lemington.

Like many of the old pits and spoil heaps in our area, Jenny Pit was reclaimed by planting its area with trees, as was also done on Throckley land. The extent of the plantation now hiding Jenny Pit is, however, larger than many of the others nearby. For example, it is several times larger than the near circular plantation which surrounds Engine Bank Pit just to the south.

Luckily LIDAR DTM can see through trees. The data within the LIDAR image has been processed (exagerated) to reveal more detail.
Picture
Area around Jenny Pit, Heddon Hall & Heddon Colliery. Lidar dtm 1m enhanced.
What is revealed below the trees is a impression shaped like a tennis racket, with the handle pointing to the SE where it ends at the fence which forms the Throckley boundary. The field to the east has been cultivated for many years and appears completely smooth on LIDAR unlike the narrow rig & furrow ploughing which remains around the disused pit in the pasture land below Heddon Hall.

This looks very much like the pit-head terminus of a former waggonway extending onto Heddon land.

Directly below the site of the pit, running straight west to east (not entirely level as slightly downhill to the west) is what I had considered to be an old field boundary. Indeed it is shown as such on the 1st edition map, with trees shown along its length. The LIDAR image suggests that it is double banked, some 7m in width, although possibly with a ditch on its N (uphill side). Could this also be the remains of a waggonway. Its direction takes it just to the north of King Pit, on the 1st edition map. This eventually became the location of Heddon Margaret Colliery. There is also a Richard Pit to the north.

A waggonway connection to these Heddon pits with the Throckley waggonway system would have predated the collieries eventual connection to the south, with the railway successor of the Wylam Waggonway.
Picture
Location of Jenny Pit. Side by side georeferenced maps, National Library of Scotland: Six-inch 1st edition and ESRI World Imagery.

Heddon & Throckley - 3D lidar landscape by NOWTAG on Sketchfab

Beyond the racket-handle of Jenny Pit, on Throckley land, there are the small tree-covered remains of another coal pit, shown as Coronation Pit on a plan of Throckley estate. This could also have been served by the suggested waggonway as could several other old pits to the north of Reigh Burn, e.g. West Engine & East Engine Pits. There is a similar sized depression shown on the LIDAR image, close to Jenny Pit on the Heddon side of the boundary, which could be the remains of a ventilation shaft.
I contacted Les Turnbull about the LIDAR observation at Jenny Pit and he suggested the similarity to the waggonway termini depicted at The Far Pit (E) and The Middle Pit (D & C) of Heaton Main Colliery, shown on Watson's plan of 1805.
Picture
Figure of Watson's Waggonway Plan of Heaton Main Colliery from Les Turnbull, Coals from Newcastle, 2002.
It has to be said that there is speculation of other waggonways or tramways across these fields around Heddon Hall. For example, Historic England's Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer shows several possible features, but these appear to me less convincing. For example, one is the straight bank running W-E just above Jenny Pit, and another is one of the two converging features to the west.
Picture
Part of Historic England's Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer suggesting possible waggonways in the area surrounding Heddon Hall (2024). Jenny Pit is just right of centre (represented as an area of coal working).
The Aerial Mapping Explorer also shows a crop or soil mark, interpreted as the route of a waggonway, running diagonally through Throckley from the jucntion of the Hexham Road and Coach Road, through what is now a housing estate, towards the Leazes on the west side of Hallow Hill. It is recorded as Monument Number 1437960. Lidar shows its likely course running across the south face of the hill. It appears to join the line of the former mineral railway which runs just north of the Reigh Burn which served Throckley Isabella Colliery and  probably on the line of the former waggonway discussed here from Jenny Pit.

Although a different interpretation of this line clearly doesn't preclude it from being the former course of a waggonway. it seems to me that the line observed here is close to that used by the pipelines of 24" and 30" (1869), for trade and domestic water supplies respectively, from a well originally constructed at the terminus of the Throckley Aqueduct (1866). Filter beds were built on the site of this well in 1875, and a valve house even later (a listed building c1890) located south of the Hexham Road, below the filter beds, and immediately west of the Coach Road junction, very close to where this supposed waggonway starts. Information taken from R W Rennison (1979) Water to Tyneside. See Map 9, p.112
.
Picture
Valve House, corner of Hexham Road & Coach Road, Throckley. Photo A Curtis (2013).
If the LIDAR image of Jenny Pit does suggest a waggonway terminus, presumably branching sidings where waggons could be stored, waiting to be filled or transported, then what could the circular feature at the northern end be. It is about 15m in diameter, too wide for a mine shaft. One possibility could be the platform of a horse-drawn gin. Perhaps something similar to the winding machinery for a close-by shaft sketched by Sir John Clerk and reproduced in Les Turnbull's book on page 48. Maybe Jenny Pit was operated in the pre-steam era or too far out to be considered for conversion.
Picture
The east side of the whim gin sited at the east end of the Pockerley Waggonway. Beamish Museum. From Wikipedia Commons.
Picture
If the feature does represent a waggonway serving Jenny Pit on Heddon land then its trajectory onto Throckley land would appear to take it along the gently curving boundary to the east (now a footpath into land which is now part of Tyne Riverside Park). The area further east has been greatly altered by the subsequent location of Throckley Isabella Colliery and eventual restoration of the land. The waggonway would have run north of the Reigh Burn, joining the Wylam Waggonway somewhere just below Newburn Grange Farm. Part of this route could have been later used by the mineral line which served Isabella Colliery.
Picture
Footpath on a track north of Throckley Pond looking very like a waggonway. Photo A Curtis (2024).
I have plotted the conjectured line (the lower purple line) on my revised plan of the Throckley Coal Pits & Waggonways.

If the line running across the field just south of Jenny Pit, also represents the line of a waggonway, perhaps later modified as a field boundary along which trees were planted, this could have served a pit (spoil heap and shaft) located close to the east of Station Road. This is just north of Flocktons and the location of Heddon Colliery. Another shaft is in the wood on the same side of the road just to the north, and, as it has sunk slightly in the centre, reveals a few courses of fine stone-built masonry. Perhaps this was a ventilation shaft.
Picture
Disused coal mine shaft below Heddon Hall. Photo A Curtis (2015).
Picture
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From Pit to Palace

19/5/2016

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From Pit to Palace: A Romantic Autobiography by James J Lawler. The Palace Publishing Company, New York (1906).
Picture
Just came across this strange book. It can be read or downloaded on the Internet Archive website. It's subtitle is 'A Romantic Autobiography' and is set in Wylam and Heddon on the Wall. It may well be an autobiography of the author, James J Lawler, but then why is the hero of the story called James Raymond? I can find neither of these named individuals in local records. The author's preface only provides this clue (the emphasis is mine):
Many biographies have been written of successful men who began life under the poorest conditions and while this sketch, which consists of more facts than fiction, might appear like repeating an old story ...
Picture
Heddon Hall (but not as we know it!)
Although many recognisable events, descriptions and named people do occur in the book there are also many errors. They could of course be put down to a poor memory of past events and places. There is also much that smacks of fabrication and a huge desire to set the hero in the best possible light. If it is an autobiography it is certainly high on the big-headed side and there is little modesty.

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William Maxon Collingwood Wilson (1897-1942)

31/7/2014

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William Maxon Collingwood Wilson was born in Tynemouth, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1897.

The 1901 Census shows that he was living with his family at Heddon Hall in 1901.

His father was William Robert Wilson (43), a Solicitor from Bolton, Lancashire. He was born on 18th May 1857 in Bolton-le-Moors and died on 23rd November 1903 in Heddon Hall. He played cricket for Newcastle and Northumberland between 1879-80.

His mother was Mary Fenwick Wilson (31, born Newcastle).

William MC Wilson was the youngest of three children, having two sisters, Dorothy Foster Wilson (9, born Durham) and Phylis Fenwick Wilson (6, born Dinnington). In Heddon Hall in 1901 they were tended by 7 servants: Emma Ann Graf (19, governess from Switzerland), Mary Doughty (47, widowed uphostress, born North Shields), Euphemia Willey (25, cook, born Ovingham), Jane Maxwell (27, waiting maid, born Wigton, Cumberland), Elenor Ames (20, house maid, born Hylton Castle, Durham), Hannah Clewes (19, nurse, born Jarrow), Sarah Frances Story (9, kitchen maid, born Wigton, Cumberland).

There were two neighbouring cottages to Heddon Hall. One was
occupied by Sarah Ames (51, born Newcastle) working as laundress, her son, James Ames (18, born Hylton Castle, Durham), working as a gardener, and two daughters. George Moore (33, born Benwell) was also a gardener, living in the other cottage with his wife and two young daughters.

The Wilson family cannot be traced in the 1911 Census and had clearly left Heddon Hall some time before.
As we have already recorded in our account of the 1911 Census, William Robert Wilson was found shot dead in the grounds of Heddon Hall in 1903.

His death was recorded in The Shields Daily Gazette on Tuesday 24 November 1903, page 4, col 6.
NEWCASTLE SOLICITOR'S TRAGIC DEATH. The death took place yesterday under very tragic circumstances of William Robert Wilson, solicitor, of Newcastle. Mr Wilson resided at Heddon Hall, near Heddon-on-the-Wall, seven miles from Newcastle, and had lately suffered from sleeplessness, taking drugs to alleviate the trouble. Yesterday he left his residence in the morning with the apparent intention of going to business at Newcastle, and later in the day his dead body was found in a wood near the hall, shot wounds having caused the death. His body was found by his daughter, and a double-barrelled shot gun and a loaded rook gun lay by his side, one barrel of the former being discharged. The deceased was a member of the firm of Wilson and Wilson solicitors, Newcastle, having been admitted solicitor in 1881, and he had a considerable practice in the city. He leaves a widow and family of three. He was a keen sportsman, chiefly known as a dog fancier, and was a well-known member of the Kennel Club, his favourite breed being fox terriers.
William MC Wilson, aged just 3 in 1901, became Lieutenant Colonel William Wilson, and now occupies a Commonwealth War Grave at  El Alamein, where he died on 25 July 1942.
A recent email contact from Sean Smart, Head of History at Shrewsbury House School, provided more information about his later life from a project on former pupils.

The family moved from Heddon sometime before the First World War and William attended Shrewsbury House School in Surbiton, Surrey. From there he went to Dover College and then, perhaps because of his North East connections, served in the Northumberland Fusiliers in WW1 as a junior officer.

He served in France and Italy, and was awarded an Italian medal for bravery (White Cross of the Order of Savoy)
and was mentioned in dispatches

After the war he served in the Indian Army and was eventually in the 1st Bn Punjab Regiment. Sean found out that he represented the regiment at George VI’s coronation in 1936.

A William M C Wilson is recorded on the ship Ranpura from London to Bombay on 24th June 1927, his occupation listed as the Indian Army.

By 1939 he was the Regiments CO and was serving with them on the NW Frontier of India. The regiment was moved to North Africa via Iraq and sadly he was killed by enemy shell fire at El Alamein on 25th July 1942. He is mentioned briefly in a very rare book called – The First Punjabis: A History of the First Punjab Regiment (Mohammed Ibrahim Qureshi 1958).
On 20th March 1924 William married Barbara Campbell Baldwin (b. 1903, Tateley, Hampshire) in  Rawal Pindi, Bengal, India.

On 5th March 1949, Deirdre M.P. Wilson, the only daughter of the late Lt.Col. W.M.C. Wilson, and Mrs B. Campbell Wilson, of Yately, Camberley, Surrey, married Hugh Desmond Campbell Wilson, an officer in Royal Navy (retired 1953), at St Peter's, Yately, Surrey.
Sean finished off his email correspondence with:
PS – One more thing, if you do update his entry on your website, maybe you could mention we did add him to our School’s War Memorial this year since previous to our research project his death was unknown here.

Picture
Shrewsbury House School War Memorial. Photo by Sean Smart (2014).
Shrewsbury House School students managed to uncover the names of three forgotten soldiers missing from the school's First World War Memorial and are currently researching the names on their Memorial from the Second World War, including William Wilson.

Surbiton pupils uncover missing World War One soldiers' names - Surrey Comet,11th October 2013
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Heddon-on-the-Wall, a poem by James Anderson

19/8/2013

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Following on from the previous blog, The Waggoner, a Traditional Tyneside Song, research has now revealed, Heddon-on-the-Wall, a poem/song by James Anderson in his book, Blyth and Tyneside Poems & Songs, published in 1898 by J Fraser, Scribe Office, Blyth.

I must apologise for having tracked down a copy of this rare publication (at Cornell University Library in the USA) but now find there is also a copy a little closer, at the Old Jail in Hexham (Border History Museum). The book cover and several pages of the 126 page book (although not p59 where this poem can be found) are reproduced on FARNE.

It was clearly something we needed on this website and I have transcribed it in full below. Enjoy!

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Romantic account of a visit to Heddon Hall by Rev. Dr. Douglas Frazer-Hurst

23/3/2013

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A lady called Jo-Anne Sunbeam got in touch asking the following question:
I am researching my Irish ancestors and find in one of the books written by Rev. Douglas Frazer Hurst (Presbyterian Minister) he states around the time of 1904 - 1915 he went to stay with relatives at Heddon Hall, Heddon on the Wall. He however does not state the name of these relatives and I wondered if you had the name of the people who rented it after 1903 and again in 1910.
As usual I had no answers but did put together a partial list of people I could find at Heddon Hall after it was sold by the Bates family in 1895.
  • William Robert Wilson 1901 (died 1903)
  • Max Holzpfel 1907 (see below)
  • Frederick Wise 1920
  • Archibald Ross died 1931
  • Rollo Samuel Barrett 1937
Jo-Anne sent me some further information:
I have attached the relevant pages from the book "The Bridge of Life" by the Rev. Douglas Frazer-Hurst, who was born of Irish extraction in Walker on Tyne, Northumberland, his father being the local doctor there.  I think he was there [Heddon Hall] between 1904 and 1910.

If anyone knows the names of Jo-Anne's relatives who lived in Heddon Hall between 1904 and 1915 please let us know.
Picture
Heddon Hall from old postcard.

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