History
- Category: High Newport Allotments
- Published: Saturday, 15 June 2019 21:42
- Written by Administrator
- Hits: 535
High Newport Allotments are located in Silksworth Sunderland below is the beginning of Silksworths colliery and the housing created for the people working in Silksworth Colliery
New Tunstall now Silksworth is the village serving Londonderry's Silksworth colliery, which opened in 1873.
The nine streets and 350 houses, built 1868-74, form a classic colliery settlement. Overmen’s houses, with five rooms, and sinkers’ dwellings, were separate from the rest. The remainder divided into three classes, ranging from two rooms with pantry and yard, to four ground floor rooms, all built to a uniform plan. As an experiment, 26 were built of cement. The village was well laid out and drained, every house had a garden, usually to the front, and there were various community buildings: schools (1876), a Primitive Methodist chapel 1877 and Volunteer Drill hall 1889. The miners’ union built the Miners’ Hall, at the centre of the village, in 1893.
The Sportsman’s Arms now Known as the Scullery
The Sportsman’s Arms closed on the 05-02-2010 when it closed it was left empty for a few years until a plumbing business opened up a showroom and office in the premises the company owners decided as they were not using all of the building so decided to rent out the old lounge at the rear of the pub
The Sportsmans Arms Silksworth was once one of the most important buildings in Silksworth
Images taken by Dave Bell
I took these images from the bottom of High Newport Allotments in May 2010 when the Sportsman’s Arms sadly closed and ended one of the last places that was used and built for the miners and their families of Silksworth very little remains of the miners heritage in Silksworth nowadays
The once proud sign of the Sportsman’s Arms now looks tired and weary
Notice the boarded up windows and The Sportsmans Arms sign still swinging as if everything was ok image taken on a wet and windy very cold day
Close up of the sign on the rear wall of The Sportsmans Arms which closed in May 2010 because of lost revenue caused by very few local people using the public house
The Sportsmans Arms puplic house built for the miners of Silksworth in 1871 as Silksworth Colliery grew new houses were built for the miners and their families and not forgetting why The Sportsmans Arms built for the miners when they had finished their shifts and to socialise when not working
Silksworth Colliery shaft was sunk in 1869 In 1871, according to the Census there were approx 800 people living in the Silksworth and Tunstall areas, the local area was mainly farmland and where most people worked on the land.
