Consider this: all the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do.
From ‘Cradle to Cradle’ by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
A walk by the Blaydon Burn, a small stream tributary of the River Tyne, is a different experience today than it would have been a century ago. Then the valley through which the burn runs was a hive of industrial activity based around coal mining and corn milling. Eight mills were working at one point along a valley just over a mile long. Besides these were a mine, a brick manufactory, a forge, a tar works and a coke works—a microcosm of the industrial north.
Once, the valley would have been a tumult of noise. The clump of boots and horse hooves. The shouts of men and the clank of wheels. The shrill of hooters and whistles. Now there is only the tinkling of water, the singing of birds, the buzz of insects and the breeze through the leaves of trees. Nature has reclaimed its own.
As I crossed the tree line of what is now a nature reserve that covers some one hundred hectares, the crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot was the only 'man-made' sound. I walked from gleaming sunshine to under a canopy of leaves that cast dappled shadows on the vegetation below. Under that leafy sunshade, the air was cool and moist. The musky scent of earth, vegetation and woodland filling my nostrils.
Moving further into the woods, the trees stood taller and closer together, creating a sense of intimacy and seclusion. It was peaceful and contemplative, allowing me to appreciate the natural beauty surrounding me. Yet, forgotten remnants of the industrial past were still visible amongst the plants and trees.
The first such remnant was of Joseph Cowen's Firebrick Manufactory. It was one of two in the area, and it's no coincidence that brick manufacture would sit beside coal mining as the clay made to make bricks is often found under coal seams.
Firebricks are used to line furnaces and kilns, so they must withstand hot temperatures without crumbling. Cowen's brick production peaked at six million a year, and the bricks highly regarded worldwide. They’ve been discovered in Belgium, Sardinia, Germany, Mauritius, Japan, Australia and the USA. These bricks long outlasting the brickworks from which they came as that closed in 1975 when the clay deposits ran out. All I could see of what was once a thriving works was part of a kiln wall. It now sat within a meadow home to the Dingy Skipper butterfly. As its name suggests, it is not the brightest coloured of butterflies and is often mistaken for a moth. The Dingy Skipper is declining, so having a meadow where it can flourish is no bad thing.
And Blaydon has not entirely lost Firebrick ‘manufacture’. The Firebrick Brewery, about fifteen minute’s walk from my home, is on Cowen Road, named in honour of the brick maker. The brewery makes some fine ales and lagers. I'm particularly partial to their 'Toon Broon.'
But getting back to my walk and as I continued through the wood, I came upon what remains of 'Massey Forge'. And in truth, that’s little—just fragments of two ovens of uncertain purpose, smothered in foliage.
Until the 19th Century, the site had been a water-powered corn mill. The forge then replaced the mill. Today the site is home to the Dipper and the Grey Wagtail. The Blaydon Burn meanders past what was once the forge offering the birds a ready supply of food, from freshwater shrimps to Mayflies.
Leaving the forge behind me, I came upon an increasingly rare sight in the UK, Elm Trees. Once a symbol of strength and resilience, they’ve been devastated by Elm disease. However, the trees I saw were majestic, with branches covered in vivid green leaves that sparkled emerald-like in the bright sun. Elms are a favourite of many species of birds. And in this nature reserve, also the White-letter hairstreak butterfly. Now a protected species in the UK, the butterfly only lays eggs in flowering Elm trees. Unsurprisingly, the butterfly is so-called because of the white, W-shaped lines on the underside of its brown wings.
Moving ever further into the dense wood, I discovered more signs of industry as I came across a wall that is all that is left of Hobby's Water Mill. Initially built in the late 1700s, it acquired its name from the corruption of its first owner's name, Mr Hoply. Not far upstream from the mill, I found Hobby's Millpond. Created initially by damming the burn to power the Mill. However, as milling declined, the pond was repurposed to function as a reservoir for the mines and to supply water to mine workers' houses. These days the pond serves local wildlife, such as the water shrew.
Not long after passing the millpond, I came on the remains of the Edward Pit. Trees and thick ivy almost obscured the arched brick entranceway to the tunnel that led to the pit. It closed in 1896, and the entrance was blocked, then reopened when a coke and tar works began operation. That continued until the 1950s when the coke works ceased production. The archway and tunnel were then blocked again. To act as a deterrent against attempted entry a skull and crossbones was painted on the bricked-up archway, although that has now faded over time.
Following alongside the burn, I left behind signs of yesterday's industry to come upon a group of Oak trees standing resolute. These trees and the Elms I passed earlier were standing even when industry dominated the valley and have survived to seed others that now grow along the banks of the burn.
I took a moment to pause among the stately grandeur of those sturdy and enduring trees. Over their gnarled bark, I watched countless insects scurrying about the day's business. Amongst the various birdsong came the steady tap of woodpeckers, while dancing above me were butterflies that call the Oak trees home—all a reminder of the beauty and resilience of the natural world.
Moving beyond the Oaks, I discovered a large body of reed-filled water. Throughout my walk, I saw and heard various insects busying and buzzing around me. However, on this occasion, as I looked across the water's surface, the flash of dazzling colour from dragonflies and damselflies caught my eye—a zigzagging of yellow, red, brown, and blue.
I was now at my turning point for home, having reached the farthest edge of the valley, the Blaydon Burn meadow. A profusion of colourful wildflowers rippling in the gentle breeze. A kaleidoscope of bright yellow, pink, red and purple blooms seemingly competing to attract the buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies. Try me! Try me! It was a tranquil yet lively scene of natural beauty; it was easy to lose myself for a while in its contemplation.
My mind-wandering over it was back to foot wandering and the return journey on the other bank of the burn. My first industrial encounter was a small reservoir constructed in the early 1900s to serve the valley's collieries and coke works. Now they have gone, the brackish water of the reservoir serves the benefit of the wildlife and birds that live within the woodland.
Continuing, I came upon the steps you see in the photograph. Steps that appear to lead nowhere. Yet once they would have echoed to the sound of pit boots as these steps led into the Bessie Drift mine that closed in 1956 after being in operation for a century. Bessie and her 'sister' drift mine Mary had a combined output of 100,000 tons per year from a coal seam narrower than a metre across. At the mine's peak in the inter-war years, some one thousand people worked in them. We usually think of a coal mine as a hole in the ground. Yet, Bessie is halfway up a hillside hence the need for steps for the miners to enter the mine before setting to work and burrowing back into the side of the valley.
While it's pleasing to report that neither Mary nor Bessie saw any significant disasters, fifty-two workers still lost their lives over the years of the mine's operation. Primarily through accidents involving crushing by wagons and tubs. And to give some insight into coal mining in the northeast of the early 20th Century. Miners worked in pairs – the 'hewer' who cut the coal and his 'marra' who loaded tubs with the cut coal. Each tub could hold half a ton, and the expectation was that the two miners would fill around ten tubs per eight-hour shift. Before nationalisation in 1947, Hewers were paid per tub, but only if the tub carried at least half a ton of coal. The hewer paid the marra and therefore took great care in choosing to work with a marra he both got on with and who could work at a similar pace to him. In the 1930s, a hewer's typical take-home pay was two pounds and fifteen shillings a week, the equivalent today of around three-quarters of the UK minimum wage. Not much, given the effort and dangers involved in the work.
The tubs were taken to and from the mine three at a time by pit ponies, led by young boys, along a narrow gauge 'railway' line. At the time of nationalisation, some sixty-five working pit ponies were still at Blaydon Burn mines. These were Shetland/Galloway cross ponies bred to be strong and no more than 1.35m (four feet six inches) tall. Because the ponies worked in drift mines, their stabling was above ground, and the stable's foundations were still visible.
The height of the ponies gives you an idea of how small the tunnels were in Bessie. In his 1937 ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’, George Orwell offered a claustrophobic description of his trip down a mine. Here's an extract from the section on getting to the coalface,
"... At the start to walk stooping is rather a joke, but it is a joke that soon wears off. I am handicapped by being exceptionally tall, but when the roof falls to four feet or less it is a tough job for anybody except a dwarf or a child. You not only have to bend double, you have also got to keep your head up all the while so as to see the beams and girders and dodge them when they come. You have, therefore, a constant crick in the neck, but this is nothing to the pain in your knees and thighs.... Your pace grows slower and slower. You come to a stretch of a couple of hundred yards where it is all exceptionally low and you have to work yourself along in a squatting position. Then suddenly the roof opens out to a mysterious height — scene of and old fall of rock, probably — and for twenty whole yards you can stand upright. The relief is overwhelming. But after this there is another low stretch of a hundred yards and then a succession of beams which you have to crawl under. You go down on all fours; even this is a relief after the squatting business. But when you come to the end of the beams and try to get up again, you find that your knees have temporarily struck work and refuse to lift you. You call a halt, ignominiously, and say that you would like to rest for a minute or two. Your guide (a miner) is sympathetic.... You have gone a mile and taken the best part of an hour; a miner would do it in not much more than twenty minutes. Having got there, you have to sprawl in the coal dust and get your strength back for several minutes before you can even watch the work in progress with any kind of intelligence."
I did not need to crouch or crawl to continue my walk. A walk that then brought me to part of the high wall of the 'coal drops' from which the tubs were emptied into horse-drawn wagons below. The wall was once part of a shed used to separate varied sizes of coal. Although these days, the large cracks within the wall serve as excellent nesting sites for bats.
I was nearing the end of my walk when I passed what little is still there of Wintrip's Mill—named after its 19th Century owner, the mill manufactured flint that different potteries around Tyneside used in their production process. Passing on from the Mill, it was to the land reclaimed from what was once a significant coke works. In its working days, it generated massive amounts of excess heat. An electricity plant then used this to supply power to the mines. After their closure, the electricity went into the National Grid—the gases from coke-making produced other by-products too. For instance, these were the first works in the world to produce petrol from coal – known initially as Blaydon Benzol. As virtuous as these by-products may have seemed at the time, all are now gone for the better of the environment, with nature reclaiming the land for the benefit of wildlife.
As I left the nature reserve, another aroma caught my nose—the intoxicatingly warm, rich smoky fragrance of roasting coffee. The further I moved away from the woodland, the more the air filled with the delightfully toasty, nutty, caramelly and chocolatey bouquet. My walk through nature had offered one of life's simpler pleasures, and this aroma offered another. It proved irresistible, so before heading home, it was to Pumphrey's Coffee to replenish my supplies. The business dates to 1750, when it opened in Newcastle's Cloth Market, before moving to the outskirts of Blaydon in 1983, when it began shedding its wonderful coffee-roasting aromas over part of the town.
Carrying my freshly ground Bigg Market Espresso in one hand and Blue Mountain Blend in the other, I mused on my walk home that those once buoyant manpower-intensive industries of which now only fragments remain had all come and gone during the ongoing life of a small coffee roasting business.
Spectacular detail, in both observation and history. Are you a historian by trade? Wonderful reading here. I woukd have liked a fee more pics though! 😉
Wonderful
My son cycles the old wagonways and through the woods at Blaydon to get to work. I've forwarded your piece on to him, Harry. Most interesting.