Bilton Banks, Northumberland

Bilton Banks was a village in Northumberland adjacent to the coal mines of Shilbottle and Longdyke. It was home to many miners’ families from the late 19th century through the mid 20th century when the mines were finally closed and the houses condemned and demolished. Today there is nothing to show that, for almost three quarters of a century, a close-knit community of dozens of working families lived and worked there but still, hidden beneath a peaceful agricultural scene, lie the tunnels and workings in which they laboured to bring up the coal to feed British industry.

History

The Pit

It is believed that monks of nearby Hulne Priory were mining coal in the area from around the 12th century and written survey records, held by the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, exist from the 1500s of transactions involving the transfer of ownership of coal mines and mining rights.

The mine most associated with Bilton Banks community was Longdyke Pit. It was sunk in about 1844/5 at a depth of around 25 fathoms. The shaft was ten and a half feet in diameter and worked by three shifts of miners. The carts down the mine were towed on rails by pit ponies which lived for many years in the mines, never coming up into the sunlight until they were retired, by which time their eyesight had often been badly affected.

The Village

In the census of June 1841, the village of Bilton Banks shows only two families of agricultural workers as resident.

Following an adverse report of housing conditions in the village of Shilbottle by a sanitary inspector in 1874, housing at Bilton Banks was constructed adjacent to Longdyke Colliery, on the Duke of Northumberland’s land, to house the mine workers. By the census of 1881, 29 dwellings are listed with a total of 144 occupants and by 1891 164 people are shown as living in the village, of which by far the majority worked in some fashion at the colliery. Living conditions were Spartan: one room below, two above and outside privy. Later refinement may have added a lean-to wash house with a sink and pantry on the rear of the house. The privies were emptied into miiddens cleared weekly by the ‘night soil men’ with wheelbarrows, horse and cart.

Longdyke Colliery was abandoned in August 1925 but the village remained. In 1937 the houses at Bilton Banks were inspected under the provisions of the Housing Act 1925 and condemned for demolition. However, many survived into the 1950s before finally being demolished.