Canny lass

@stustep Yes, it certainly is but there is a connection between Dunn's the Drapers and the Gibson family. Mary Ellen Gibson, born 1852 to Henry Gibson (credited with being the founder of the chain & nail business) and his wife Mary, married draper Lewis Dunn in 1877 and left the family home (Bank House) to join her husband above the shop further up the street. She and Lewis had four children. Unfortunately, Lewis died aged about 40 years in 1885 leaving Mary a widow at the age of 33 with four children - the youngest only months old. She continued to run the drapery business until at least 1891 and possibly longer. In 1901 she and 3 of her children were once again living in Bank House together with her brother and their now frail and infirm father Henry, Be careful! It can get quite addictive!

I was a bit confused as well Vic. The place I'm talking about is shown above running from the gable-end on the left and covering the first three upstairs windows. Downstairs there's one window on the left of the entrance door followed by the windows of the bank (formerly part of the Gibson home) and the blocked entrance to the bank.This house had originally only 8 rooms and a kitchen. The ground floor plan from the 1970s includes even the adjoining building.

Hoping to update The Last of the Nailers by the end of the week.

@stustep Good work Stustep! That’s saved me a great deal of research. At great risk of revealing my age I can say that I remember City Vending early 70s – or possibly even late 60s – though I thought it was a bit further down the street but could be wrong. When you talk about 34 – 38 Front Street are you referring to ’dwellings’ all in the same building, ie the building that housed the bank? I’ve come as far as 1939 and at that point the building may already have been three dwellings. Certainly, there are no Gibson’s living there in 1939. As you can see 36 now has an additional 4. This may later have become number 34. Number 38 hasn’t been there on previous documents where Bank House was the last house on the corner. However, it’s not impossible that the bank was stiil there as well. There was certainly a bank manager living there in 1936 but he was ’indisposed’ (for want of a better word) in 1939, However he was still referred to as a bank manager. More about that later. Somewhat confusing is that it’s called ”Old” Bank House – suggesting that it’s no longer a bank. However, they did have a sub-branch at Bedlington Station.

Coming soon! This is an interesting family and I've been researching them this week. I'll post soon, probably on John Dawson's thread The Last of the Nailers. It will probably be long so it may need a few posts.

PS Have you read John Dawson's topic 'The last of the Nailers' in History Hollow?

Hi @stustep and welcome to the forum. The Gibson nailers get a mention in Graces Guide https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Bedlington_Ironworks where you can read that: "During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the splitting mills became disused at the Bedlington works, and soon after that all the nailers shops, apart from one, disappeared from the town. The last shop belonged to the Gibson family and can be traced back to the beginning of the last century. Mr. Gibson says he was forced to finally pull down the shutters of his shop in 1930. He has since been known in Bedlington and district as "The last of the Nailers". Hope this is of use to you.

@ms_lighthouse happy to have been able to help.

Thanks Eggy. Strange thing is, on several websites I get a pop-up telling me that the site is not secure and a choice to continue or abort my search but this doesn't happen with DMM.

@Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) Well, I got him to look at it and he 'clarted' all day with no luck. He wonders if it has anything to do with my having bought a new laptop and iphone exactly one year ago when something called F-secure was installed (Part of the package I bought). I thought I'd had the problem over a year but maybe I'm wrong.

You might as well have written that in Chinese!! I'll have to get my OH to have a look at it. I tried to access dmm again today and got the same message. However, i did see that that there was a padlock with a red line through it at the beginning of the web adress.

@7RIrFIf you are interested in the Bomarsund pits you might like this. It's a page from the notes of the people who were responsible for names on the first series of OS maps round about the 1860s. This particular entry is for Barrington Colliery's Hannah pit. The handwriting's not too bad: "A new colliery with all the necessary apparatus. Owing to some differences among the company the workings are dicontinued".

I agree that on that map they would appear to be the same thing. The three pits of Bomarsund were literally in each other's back yards. It's about 5-6 years since i researched my family connections to mining in Bomarsund so the memory is a bit vague but I've rummaged through my notes today and I think I can explain it to you better. My memory failed me when I said that Bomarsund pit was officially named Bedlington F pit. These were two separate pits only yards from each other. Here's a map showing the 3 pits. Right to left: Bedlington F pit, Bomarsund Colliery and the Hannah pit. Following the map is a list of the coordinates for these pits. I've marked Bedlington F and Bomarsund in red. The Hannah I've marked blue. If you compare the coordinates for Bedlington F and Bomarsund colliery you'll see that they are identical. So, it was Bedlington F which became Bomarsund colliery. The Hannah, judging by its coordinates, wasn't many yards away so it's easy to see why they would appear to be one and the same within the small confines of a map.

I haven't been ale to access dmm for well over a year. Any attempt just gives this message. Any idea what it means?

The Hannah pit and Bomarsund pit were two quite separate entities. The Hannah, opened in 1854, was still being worked up until 1927 when it finally closed but the Bomarsund pit was opened prior to that in 1910 and had nothing to do with Barrington colliery. It was owned and worked by Bedlington Colliery. I think, but don't quote me, its official title was Bedlington F pit. There's no way of knowing why Red Row was built where it was, but it may have had something to do with killing two birds with one stone - housing for both the Hannah and the Henry at relatively equal distance from the two.