Marley Hill

Marley Hill is a former colliery village about six miles to the south west of Gateshead, near the border between Tyne and Wear and County Durham. It has been part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead since 1974. Prior to this it was part of Whickham Urban District. It lies within the Whickham South & Sunniside electoral ward of the Blaydon parliamentary constituency. Neighbouring towns and villages include Burnopfield (2 miles away); Sunniside, Gateshead (about half a mile away); Byermoor (just under a mile away). Marley Hill, Sunniside, Burnopfield and Byermoor all share Whickham's "NE16" postcode prefix, despite Burnopfield sitting just over the border in County Durham. The actual area considered to be Marley Hill for postal purposes etc. is actually much larger than it would first appear, as there were originally more houses to the south and south east, nearer the colliery. Birkheads Cottages and Hedley Hall Farm are the farthest properties away from the village itself, these being about a mile to the south-east. Hedley Hall Farm's address is anomalously listed as "Hedley Lane, Sunniside", despite actually being further away from Sunniside than Birkheads Cottages, whose addresses read "Birkheads Lane, Marley Hill".

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Sunniside, Gateshead

Sunniside is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, which is located around 5.5 miles (9 km) from Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to the creation of the county of Tyne and Wear in 1974, it was part of Whickham Urban District, which in turn formed a part of County Durham. Sunniside has a busy Front Street, with a collection of pubs, shops, and amenities. The village is surrounded mainly by farmland, with plantations of trees to the east, whilst also neighbouring the villages of Byermoor, Marley Hill and Whickham. The village is mostly housing, with older terraced properties situated near to the shops, and large housing estates built from the 1960s onward radiating from this area. It has a large park to the north of the village, next to Burnthouse Lane. Attractions near to the village include Beamish Museum and Tanfield Railway. The A692 road runs directly through the centre of the village and is used by many transport companies as a direct route to the town of Consett: this road carries some of the heaviest traffic through the borough of Gateshead daily. There have been a lot of private housing developments in the village of Sunniside, between 2017 and 2021, leading to increases in population and traffic. Sunniside has one of the highest rates of community council tax in the country (including London)

Neighbourhood Park

Tanfield Railway

The Tanfield Railway is a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge heritage railway in Gateshead and County Durham, England. Running on part of a former horse-drawn colliery wooden waggonway, later rope & horse, lastly rope & loco railway. It operates preserved industrial steam locomotives. The railway operates a passenger service every Sunday, plus other days, as well as occasional demonstration coal, goods and mixed trains. The line runs 3 miles (4.8 km) between a southern terminus at East Tanfield, Durham, to a northern terminus at Sunniside, Gateshead. Another station, Andrews House, is situated near the Marley Hill engine shed. A halt also serves the historic site of the Causey Arch. The railway claims it is "the world's oldest railway" because it runs on a section dating from 1725, other parts being in use since 1621. The volunteer-staffed railway is run by three bodies: Friends of Tanfield Railway, Tanfield Railway Trust which owns the railway, the locomotives and rolling stock, and The Tanfield Railway Company which operates the railway. The Tanfield Railway Company is split into four departments; each has a manager and director: Engineering who maintain locomotives, Operations including drivers and guards, Carriage & Waggon who preserve carriages, and Commercial which operates shops, events and the passenger side of operations.

Historic Site Museum

1.6 km

Causey Bank Mires

Causey Bank Mires is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Derwentside district of County Durham, England. It lies alongside and to the west of the Tanfield Railway, just under 1 km north of the Causey Arch. The site consists of a series of flushes with scrub, surrounded by acid and neutral grassland, a habitat with a restricted distribution in County Durham. A number of locally rare plant species are found in the area, including globe-flower, Trollius europaeus.

Hiking National Park

1.8 km

Byermoor

Byermoor is a village near Burnopfield and Sunniside in the Gateshead district, in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. The village has a population of around 100 and contains a school (Sacred Heart) and a church. The village sits on the South side of the A692 on a ridge overlooking the Derwent Valley and the nearby village of Burnopfield. It is the last village on the old turnpike road to Wolsingham before it reaches the border with County Durham. Byermoor colliery occupied the area to the South of the church prior to closure in 1968, along with four terraces built to house its workforce. Nearest to the A692 were Double Row and New Row and beyond these, Pit Row and Furnace Row. The only one of these houses to survive is the former colliery manager's house that stood at the Eastern end of New Row and was considerably larger than the others. One of the colliery's reservoirs stood alongside this, and the site of the reservoir is now occupied by some small industrial units. The access road to these was originally built as access to Double Row and the colliery itself, while just to the South of this, the road that served New Row is still in place, albeit fenced off and overgrown from a couple of yards beyond the junction with the main road. The remaining housing sits to the North of the church and is made up mainly of semi-detached houses (Ravensworth Crescent, Gibside Crescent, Strathmore Crescent and Bowes Crescent) built by Whickham Urban District Council between 1920 and 1922, as well as a row of four houses constructed around the same time by John Bowes & Partners (at the time the owners of the colliery and the Bowes Railway) to house colliery officials. These are accessed via the lane that originally led to High Marley Hill School, and now continues only a short distance from the end of Bowes Crescent, before becoming a footpath leading to the still extant school building. The school was attended by non-catholic children from the village up until its closure in 1960 due to falling pupil numbers, a fate which also befell the nearby Marley Hill Primary School in 2010. The Collieries and associated coke ovens at Byermoor and Marley Hill were the only significant local sources of employment for the inhabitants of the village, with residents now travelling further afield by car or bus for work. Bus services from Consett and Stanley pass through the village on their way to Newcastle, some via the Team Valley and Gateshead town centre, and some via Whickham and the MetroCentre transport interchange, along with a single bus between Rowlands Gill and the Team Valley early on weekday mornings, returning via the same route in the evening. Although the village had a railway for many years, there was never a passenger service, with the only rail traffic being wagons to and from the colliery and coke ovens and coal traffic from other collieries passing through - either North on its way to the staithes at Jarrow, or unwashed coal from the screens at Marley Hill and Blackburn Fell heading South to the washery at the Hobson Pit about a mile away. This through traffic also ceased not long after the closure of the colliery when the Hobson Pit (which had for some time been the only remaining colliery on the line beyond Byermoor) ceased production later the same year.

Church Neighbourhood