Prudhoe & District Local History Society
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  • Images & lists of soldiers killed in WWI & WWII
  • St Mary Magdalene Cemetery/2
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  • Gallery
    • 1. Places >
      • 1.1 Eltringham
      • 1.2 High Prudhoe
      • 1.3 Low Prudhoe
      • 1.4 West Wylam
      • 1.5 Mickley
      • 1.6 Hexham
      • 1.7 Stocksfield
      • 1.8 Ovingham/Ovington
      • 1.9 West Prudhoe
      • 1.10 Road Ends, Front Street and Stonyflat Bank
      • 1.11 Castle Road and Western Avenue
    • 2. Activities >
      • 2.1 Entertainment
      • 2.2 Football
      • 2.3 Cricket
      • 2.4 Bowls
      • 2.5 Athletics
      • 2.6 Cycling
      • 2.7 Swimming
      • 2.8 Golf
      • 2.9 Other Sports
    • 3. Public Services and Occasions >
      • 3.1 Public Services
      • 3.2 Fire Service
      • 3.3 Post Boxes
      • 3.4 Public Occasions
      • 3.5 Wars and Victory
      • 3.6 War Memorials
      • 3.7 Maps
      • 3.8 Wells of Prudhoe
      • 3.9 End of the Penny Toll
      • 3.10 Prudhoe By-Pass Construction
    • 4. Church and School >
      • 4.1 Church and Chapel
      • 4.2 Schools
    • 5. Commerce and Industry >
      • 5.1 Shops
      • 5.2 Industry
      • 5.3 Mining
      • 5.4 Public Houses
      • 5.5 Agriculture/Horticulture
      • 5.6 Other Commerce
      • 5.7 Coking in Prudhoe
    • 6. Travel >
      • 6.1 Crossing the Tyne
      • 6.2 Transport
    • 7. Castle/Hall/Hospital >
      • 7.1 Prudhoe Castle
      • 7.2 Prudhoe Hall
      • 7.3 Prudhoe Hospital
      • 7.4 Prudhoe Hospital Walled Garden
    • 8. People >
      • 8.1 Social Groups
    • 9 General >
      • 9.1 Now and Then
      • 9.2 Other
    • Liddle family photographs
    • Guest Area - North Tyne
  • Poss Sticks Book Launch 2012
  • St Mary Magdalene Cemetery/1
  • Extracts from 'A Prudhoe Likeness'
    • Section 1 >
      • PROUD HEIGHTS OR PRUDHA’S HILL
      • FROM VILLAGE TO TOWN
      • OUT OF OVINGHAM AND MICKLEY
      • IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL
      • RAIDS AND RATIONING
      • JOHN WESLEY SPARKS A FLAME
      • STARTED BY EIGHT MEN FROM WYLAM!
      • FROM FAMILY SEAT TO HOSPITAL & PLACE OF WORSHIP
      • PALACE OR POLLUTED ‘RAA’?
      • WATER FOR MAN AND BEAST
    • Section 2 >
      • END OF THE PENNY TOLL
      • “THE LITTLE VILLAGE DOWN THE BANK”
      • INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION
      • FROM LIME TO DEMOLITION
      • TRAGEDY FOR PRUDHOE
      • FIRE! STOKE THE BOILER!
      • A CANNY PINT AND MORE BESIDES
      • THE COAL BOOM BRINGS SCHOOLS
      • “FALCONER’S ACADEMY”
      • PRUDHOE NATIONAL SCHOOL
    • Section 3 >
      • FOUNDED BY THE LIDDELLS
      • A TRANSIENT POPULATION, SCHOOL FEES & EPIDEMICS
      • THE NEW SCHOOLS
      • EDUCATION FOR YOUNG AND OLD
      • LET THERE BE LIGHT
      • THE EDGE WELL
      • A NEW USE FOR THE CASTLE?
      • ALONG THE FRONT STREET
      • FAMILY ENTERPRISES
      • UP “THE TOON”
    • Section 4 >
      • HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR
      • THE WIDER WORLD OPENS UP
      • STATION GATE Eltringham
      • THE POINTS
      • A PROUD SPORTING TRADITION
      • MEN OF SPORTING TALENT
      • THE MEN IN WHITES
      • ON THE GREEN
      • IT BEGAN BESIDE ‘THE SUEY
      • FROM THE REX TO WATERWORLD
    • Section 5 >
      • OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
      • FANCIERS OF FEATHER
      • A SLAP-UP TEA AND A GOSSIP
  • Personal Memories
    • Margaret Hepworth
    • Nancy Snaith
    • Marian Smailes
    • Jim and Anne Standish
    • Marcus Gatenby
    • Bill Hunter
    • Norman Roberts
    • Peggy Ballantyne
    • Ronnie Howson
    • Bernard Stewart (West Wylam)
    • Joe Wallis
    • John Currey
    • Dr Donald Golightly
    • Interviews with woman from Heddon
Photographs relating to this article, including those in this extract, may be found in Gallery 1.1
The little village of Eltringham grew up around its colliery, brickworks and pipeworks. It consisted of three parallel rows of houses - North Row, Middle Row and South Row and had a chapel, shop, reading room, football pitch and quoits pitch. Middle Row and South Row were wooden faced on top of a rubble and plaster construction, and these were demolished in the early 1950’s. All that remains of the village today is one street (North Row), which consists of ten houses.
Picture
Eltringham Colliery and Pipeworks c. 1910
Three rows of houses on left
Eltringham School stood at the top of the hill at the west end of Beaumont Terrace and is now a private house. The school was known locally as “Station Gate” since a path ran down from there to Prudhoe Station. From the school a torturous road descended to the village by a series of steep hairpin bends and this remained a problem until the construction of the Prudhoe by pass in 1993. Before this any large lorry which needed to go down into Eltringham had to manoeuvre backwards and forwards across the road beside Beaumont Terrace, which was then the main route from Blaydon to Hexham.

Eltringham Colliery in its lifetime suffered many setbacks. The school log book’s entry for 7th March 1897 states that all the workmen at the colliery had received a fortnight’s notice to leave their work. This was said to be on account of ‘want of trade’. The major decline began in the 1920’s but the brickworks continued for a while longer. The pipeworks with its salt glaze kilns ceased production in 1975. The area occupied by the pipeworks was later taken over as the Hammerite Paintworks.

Hammerite speciality paint was invented by the late Alan Forster in his garage at Mickley and then expanded to premises on Bluebell Bank on the way up to Mount Pleasant, before moving again to the Eltringham Pipeworks site.

The pipeworks used to obtain its clay from West Mickley Colliery. A narrow gauge railway with a rope haulage system moving six tubs at a time brought clay and coal to the pipeworks via a tunnel which went under Eastgate Bank at Mickley, passing under the main road and emerging at the east end of the premises now occupied by Tyne Valley Nurseries. This system produced considerable noise as the tubs ran back and forth through the tunnel.

From Eltringham a double track standard gauge line carried bricks, pipes and coal down a steeply curved line to the sidings at ‘the Quay’ to the west of Low Prudhoe and the station for transport from there. This steep railway was operated by gravity with the full tubs going downhill bringing the empties back up. When the winding engine failed, the line was converted into a narrow gauge one and, as a result, the goods had to be off-loaded before being put onto the N.E.R. trucks at the Quay.

When the colliery closed, the stables for the pit ponies were converted into farm buildings but these have been disused since the by-pass was built.
Picture
Old Stables - part of the  Eltringham Colliery Complex 1992
Demolished and replaced by Old Eltringham Court