Shankhouse, Northumberland

Shankhouse is a former colliery village and modern residential district of Cramlington in south-east Northumberland, England. The settlement developed principally during the second half of the nineteenth century around Shankhouse Colliery, also known as the Amelia Pit, although the place-name derives from an earlier Shank House farm south of the later mining village.[1][2]

Coal mining transformed Shankhouse during the 1860s. The Cramlington colliery railway had been extended to Shankhouse in 1847, the Amelia or Shankhouse Pit was operating by the mid-1860s, and an influx of miners — notably men from Cornwall and Devon — contributed to rapid settlement growth.[3][4] By the 1890s the colliery employed around 600 people, while the village supported Methodist chapels, a Church of England mission, shops and a football club which became one of the best-known early teams in Northumberland.[5][6]

Much of the original pit village subsequently disappeared as coal mining declined and Cramlington was extensively redeveloped from the 1960s. The name Shankhouse nevertheless survives for the residential area on the eastern side of modern Cramlington.[1]

Origins of the name

Shankhouse existed as a place-name before the development of the mining settlement. Research into Northumberland place-names records Shank House on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey material, referring to a farm situated south of the later village.[1]

The derivation of Shank is uncertain. Linguistic research has considered the ordinary English word shank, but the relatively level local terrain makes a topographical meaning problematic. An alternative is the surname Shanks, which was particularly common in Northumberland during the nineteenth century.[1]

The modern settlement appears therefore to have inherited its name from Shank House farm, rather than the farm being named after the colliery village. Other agricultural holdings in the vicinity included Stickley Farm, reflecting the predominantly rural landscape that preceded large-scale mining development.[7]

Coal and the railway

The industrial development of Shankhouse was closely connected with the Cramlington coalfield.

The Cramlington Colliery Railway, originating as a wagonway serving the area’s mines, provided a route from the collieries towards coal-shipping facilities on the Tyne. The line was extended to Shankhouse in 1847. Later extensions reached Dudley in 1854 and East Hartford in 1866.[3]

The railway connection preceded the mature pit village and provided the transport infrastructure required for large-scale coal production. Shankhouse consequently developed as one component of a wider industrial system incorporating Cramlington, Dudley, Hartford, Backworth and Tyne-side staiths.[3]

By the 1860s the Amelia Pit, commonly called Shankhouse Pit or Shankhouse Colliery, was in operation.[4][8]

Shankhouse Colliery

Shankhouse Colliery stood close to the developing settlement. Contemporary records identify the mine interchangeably as the Amelia Pit and Shankhouse Pit.[4][8]

A fatal accident on 10 January 1866 provides particularly clear evidence of its early operation. William Northey, aged 41, was working underground when a stone fell from the roof and struck him. Northey and fellow miner John Stead had arrived from Cornwall only about three weeks earlier. Northey left a wife and six children and was buried at St Nicholas’s Church, Cramlington, on 13 January.[8]

The incident illustrates an important element in Shankhouse’s population growth: the recruitment of experienced miners from outside Northumberland.

Later in November 1866, the colliery suffered a major inrush of water. Miners working towards old workings in the Wellington Flat encountered water which entered with sufficient force to flood the mine almost to the top of the shaft. Initial newspaper reports feared substantial loss of life, but most of the workforce escaped. One man was drowned after falling from scaffolding in the shaft during the emergency.[9]

The colliery was then owned by Taylor and Lamb. The rescue and recovery operation involved the colliery viewer, Mr Telford, and engineer Mr Maughan, who arranged temporary winding equipment.[9]

Cornish and Devonian miners

Shankhouse acquired a notable population of miners from Cornwall and Devon during the 1860s.

A history of Primitive Methodism records a substantial influx of miners from the two south-western counties into the Cramlington district during 1865–66. Some settled at Shankhouse and brought strong Methodist traditions with them.[4]

The migration is independently demonstrated by the January 1866 death of William Northey. Both Northey and witness John Stead were Cornish miners who had arrived at Cramlington only weeks before the accident.[8]

The movement was significant enough to affect the village’s religious development. Within a few years Shankhouse supported several Methodist congregations and chapels.[4]

Growth of the pit village

The modern village emerged around the colliery during the later nineteenth century. Place-name research describes present-day Shankhouse specifically as a former pit village developed around the Amelia Pit.[1]

Rows of housing were built to accommodate mining families, creating the characteristic close relationship between workplace and settlement found throughout the Northumberland coalfield.

The expansion was substantial. By 1894, Shankhouse Colliery employed 601 people, comprising 500 underground workers and 101 surface employees. In 1896 the workforce stood at 585.[5]

The mine was therefore supporting not simply a small hamlet but a sizeable industrial community by the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Methodist churches

Methodism became particularly important in Shankhouse.

The first Methodist class in the village was formed in 1848, with Henry English as its leader. Following the arrival of miners from Cornwall and Devon in 1865–66, the district experienced a major religious revival in 1867–68.[4]

A history published in 1909 records that within fewer than four years the Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists and Free Methodists had established comfortable chapels in Shankhouse.[4]

Late nineteenth-century directories confirm the continued presence of Wesleyan and Free Methodist chapels. Shankhouse also possessed a Church of England mission church, where services were conducted by clergy from St Nicholas’s Church in Cramlington.[6]

Northumberland Archives preserves later records for two Shankhouse Methodist congregations. The Primitive Methodist chapel at Albion Terrace is represented by surviving records for 1924–51, while the Wesleyan chapel at Boundary has records extending from 1930 until 1974.[10]

These congregations were among the principal institutions of the mining community.

Shankhouse Black Watch

Shankhouse became unusually prominent in the early history of association football through Shankhouse Black Watch Football Club.

The club was established during the 1880s. Later accounts associate its formation with a local Methodist chapel Bible class and a match involving soldiers of the Black Watch, who had camped near Shankhouse Colliery. The miners subsequently adopted the regimental name for their own team.[11]

By the middle of the decade Shankhouse Black Watch had become one of Northumberland’s strongest football clubs. In November 1885 it defeated Berwick Rangers 4–1 in the Northumberland Senior Cup. Berwick’s own club history describes Shankhouse as the holder of the Senior Cup from two seasons earlier.[12]

The team also appeared in the early rounds of the FA Cup. Its growing reputation placed a comparatively small Northumberland pit village within the emerging national football network.

On 5 May 1888, Shankhouse Black Watch provided the opposition for the first match ever played by Sunderland Albion. The match at Sunderland’s Ashville Ground attracted a large crowd and ended in a 3–0 victory for Albion.[13]

The club’s name survived far beyond the Victorian mining village. Shankhouse Black Watch was still competing in the Northern Alliance in 2000–01, when it finished second in Division Two. It subsequently adopted the name Cramlington Town.[14]

Cramlington Coal Company

By the 1890s, Shankhouse Colliery formed part of the Cramlington Coal Company Ltd undertaking.[5]

The company’s 1894 collieries included Dudley, Hartford, Cramlington High Pit and Shankhouse. Together they employed 2,770 people, of whom 601 worked at Shankhouse.[5]

Recorded employment at Shankhouse fluctuated considerably:

Year	Underground	Surface	Total
1894	500	101	601
1896	488	97	585
1900	156	68	224
1905	215	104	319
1910	211	106	317
1921	224	95	319
1925	273	139	412
1929	339	135	474
1935	334	152	486
1940	363	155	518

The figures demonstrate that the mine remained a substantial employer well into the twentieth century despite considerable fluctuations in its workforce.[5]

Coal seams

Shankhouse produced principally steam coal, with fireclay also recorded in 1902.[5]

The seams worked at different periods included the High Main, Main Coal, Yard, Low Main and Five Quarter. By 1935 the colliery was producing both household and steam coal.[5]

The High Main seam was recorded as abandoned on 12 October 1937, although operations elsewhere in the colliery continued after that date.[5]

These workings formed part of the extensively interconnected coalfield beneath Cramlington and neighbouring settlements. The 1866 inundation had already demonstrated the dangers created when new workings approached older, water-filled mine workings.[9]

Hartley Main Collieries

A major change in ownership occurred in 1929.

The Cramlington and Seaton Delaval mining interests were amalgamated into Hartley Main Collieries Ltd in May of that year. Shankhouse subsequently operated as part of the Hartley Main group.[5]

Employment remained substantial after the merger. There were 467 workers in 1930, 486 in 1935 and 518 in 1940, including 363 underground and 155 surface workers.[5]

The persistence of such employment explains why Shankhouse retained the social and physical character of a mining village well into the twentieth century.

Village institutions

By the late Victorian period Shankhouse had developed institutions characteristic of an established colliery settlement.

A contemporary directory records a Church of England mission church, Wesleyan chapel and Free Methodist chapel in the village.[6] The Methodist congregations in particular reflected both the occupational culture of the coalfield and the influence of miners arriving from Cornwall and Devon.[4]

Football became another major expression of community identity. Shankhouse Black Watch’s unusually successful early record meant that the village name became known well beyond the immediate Cramlington district.[12][13]

Terraced streets and rows of colliery housing formed the built core of the settlement. Names preserved in archival records include Albion Terrace and Boundary, both associated with Methodist congregations.[10]

Decline of the mining landscape

The twentieth-century decline of coal mining eventually removed the economic reason for which the Victorian settlement had expanded.

The surviving mining statistics show Shankhouse Colliery still employing more than 500 people in 1940.[5] Later redevelopment substantially erased the colliery landscape, including much of the old pit-village housing.

This process ultimately coincided with a much larger transformation of Cramlington. What had been a collection of an old village and separate mining communities was selected for extensive planned residential and industrial development during the post-war period.

Shankhouse was consequently absorbed into an expanding urban Cramlington rather than remaining an isolated colliery village.

Cramlington expansion

Modern Shankhouse is principally residential and forms part of the continuous built-up area of Cramlington.[7]

The earlier landscape had contained Shank House Farm, Stickley Farm, the colliery, mineral railway and miners’ housing.[1][7] These features were progressively replaced or surrounded by twentieth-century development.

The scale of change is demonstrated by Northumberland Archives’ retention of an Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 plan of Shankhouse dated 1973, produced during the period when Cramlington was undergoing major expansion.[15]

Modern housing consequently occupies land once divided between farms, the colliery and its associated settlement. The present street pattern bears relatively little resemblance to the compact Victorian mining community.

Surviving identity

Although physically incorporated into Cramlington, Shankhouse remains in use as a district name.[1][7]

Its separate historical identity is particularly preserved through records of Shankhouse Colliery, the Methodist churches and Shankhouse Black Watch. The latter carried the village’s name into organised football for more than a century after its Victorian formation.[12][14]

The place-name itself provides an older connection. Before the pit, miners’ rows and football club, there was Shank House farm; before modern suburban Cramlington, the area remained predominantly agricultural.[1]

Shankhouse therefore represents several distinct stages in the development of south-east Northumberland: an agricultural landscape, a nineteenth-century colliery settlement, a mature twentieth-century mining village and finally a residential district incorporated into the expanded town of Cramlington.

References

[1] Minna Nurminen, The Names of Settlements in Northumberland, County Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire, doctoral research, Newcastle University, 2012, entry 1771, “Shankhouse”. Records Shank House farm and discusses the development and possible derivation of the place-name. Newcastle University thesis

[2] Durham Mining Museum, “Shankhouse Colliery”, colliery record for Shankhouse/Amelia Pit, Cramlington. Durham Mining Museum: Shankhouse Colliery

[3] Tyne and Wear Historic Environment Record, HER 1056, “Cramlington Colliery Railway/Cramlington Wagonway”. Records the 1823 railway and its extension to Shankhouse in 1847. Tyne and Wear HER: Cramlington Colliery Railway

[4] W. M. Patterson, Northern Primitive Methodism, 1909, p. 353; extract reproduced by UK Wells, “Shankhouse (1867)”. Records the first Shankhouse Methodist class in 1848, migration of Cornish and Devonian miners in 1865–66 and subsequent Methodist expansion. Shankhouse Methodist history extract

[5] Durham Mining Museum, “Shankhouse Colliery”. Provides ownership, workforce, products, seams and abandonment information for the colliery from the 1890s to 1940. Shankhouse Colliery employment and workings

[6] Kelly’s Directory of Northumberland, historical description of Cramlington parish, reproduced by Forebears; records Shankhouse as a hamlet and its Church of England mission, Wesleyan and Free Methodist chapels. Historical Cramlington parish description

[7] Newcastle University, Co-Curate North East, “Shankhouse”. Overview of the former farms, colliery settlement and incorporation of Shankhouse into modern Cramlington. Co-Curate: Shankhouse

[8] Newcastle Daily Chronicle, January 1866, report of the inquest into the death of William Northey at the Amelia or Shankhouse Pit; transcript preserved by Durham Mining Museum. William Northey accident report

[9] Northern Mine Research Society, “Shankhouse Colliery Inrush – Cramlington – 1866”, based on material supplied by Ian Winstanley and the Coal Mining History Resource Centre. Shankhouse Colliery inrush of 1866

[10] Northumberland Archives, M10/G/28, Shankhouse Albion Terrace Primitive Methodist Chapel, 1924–51; M10/G/29, Shankhouse Boundary Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, 1930–74. Northumberland Archives Methodist records

[11] Michael Shanks, “A journey round my father”, 5 October 2024; family recollection of Shankhouse Black Watch’s formation through a Methodist chapel Bible class and a match involving the Black Watch regiment. Shankhouse Black Watch recollection

[12] Berwick Rangers Football Club, “History” and 1885–86 season history; records Shankhouse Black Watch’s early Northumberland Senior Cup prominence and victory over Berwick Rangers. Berwick Rangers club history

[13] Ryehill Football, “Sunderland Albion’s First Game, 5 May 1888”, 15 August 2018, reproducing the contemporary Sunderland Echo match report for Sunderland Albion 3–0 Shankhouse Black Watch. Sunderland Albion v Shankhouse Black Watch

[14] Football Club History Database, “Northern Alliance 2000–01” and “Cramlington Town”. Records Shankhouse Black Watch’s final season under that name and subsequent change to Cramlington Town. Northern Alliance 2000–01

[15] Northumberland Archives, NRO 11218/2/8/1/547, Ordnance Survey National Grid plan NZ 2678–2778, Shankhouse, Northumberland, 1973. Northumberland Archives: Shankhouse OS plan