On Bedlington.co.uk Now...

You make speeches at home? What your poor wife must have to put up with!

That's too complicated for my mind at this time of the day!

Nooo - our house😊

That's when The Carpenters were active 1969-83. Karen was born March 2nd 1953😊

In the actual House of Commons?

Thanks for the input @James! This area is extremely important to me as my parents lived in Clock House and I had sisters who were born and died there. I've researched it backwards, forwards and inside out but I'm still not 100% sure of my findings. Bridge House, I'm 100% certain so I try to guage everything from there but I've had several theories along the way and haven't ruled any of them out yet. My own personal childhood memories of the immediate area are limited to taking the bus across the bridge to visit family in one of the rows at the top of the hairpin bend, Stone Row, and nothing more. It would help me enormously to know exactly where the entrance to the woods was. I don't suppose you could point it out on a map for me? I fully agree with you about the gardener's cottage. I feel it seems a bit on the small side for a boiler room or any other sort of power house for industry of these dimensions and it seems reasonable that the gardener had his dwelling near at hand. This was the case at the top of the bend where Cowpen gardens lay.. Getting back to Rose Cottage, I can't agree with you that Rose Cottage, as I call it, and Toll House, as John calls it, are one and the same thing. Here are the differences that I see. for the sake of easy comparison, I am posting these two photos once again but this time side by side: First of all, forget whatever you've been told about size not being important! It really is, at least when it comes to comparing buildings. Toll House shows: max 2 stones width between door and window max 2 stones width between window and gable end Windows 2 panes wide full width lintel stone above and below the window frame No stone surround on windows Rose Cottage shows: At least 6 stones width between door and 'porch' plus further 2 stones width to door At least 6 stones width between window and gable end Windows 4 panes wide No lintel stone above the window Windows have full stone surround Apart from these details the obvious thing that's missing in John's photo of Toll Cottage is Clock house - which would be seen in a photo taken from that angle as there was very little space between them. What do you think? I have a couple of other possibilities for Toll House in mind but it depends on where the entrance to the woods was located. There are several instances in census records of "cottage(s) in the woods" that might fit the bill if their location is right in relation to the entrance. Grateful for any help you can give me here.

You might try the Northumberland Archives,Michael, https://northumberlandarchives.com Thomas Davison has popped up in my reasearch earlier on documents related to Bedlington Colliery - last one dated 1857.

Canny Lass. Your comments have got me interested enough to investigate the toll house a bit further. In the 1950’s I walked through the Ha’Penny woods a number of times so I must of passed the Toll House but I cannot remember ever seeing it. In the 1901 census, there are on 4 properties around furnace bridge on the Cowpen side of the river, recorded in the following sequence- Bridge End House with 4 families; Bebside Gardens with only 1 resident; Clock Tower with 2 families; Rose Cottage with 1 family. These 4 properties are shown in old maps from this period. The toll house has to be one of these buildings and it can only be Rose Cottage. Comparing the old photo of Rose Cottage with the toll house in the newspaper cutting , the windows, chimneys and gable ends are the same, the only difference being the fancy roof above the entrance door which could easily have been modified. The location is exactly where the toll house was situated - at the entrance to the woods on the footpath and there were no other building where a toll could have been as can be seen on the old map. Bebside gardens is the only house that is unclear but I believe it was the building that Joe asked about that started off this topic i.e the building next to the bridge opposite Bridge End house. The single occupant of Bebside Gardens in the 1901 census was a ‘gardener’ and next to the building is a huge garden. A gardener living in Bebside Gardens alongside a large garden!

I can't help you Michael. Apart from the entry on the DMM and your comment of -' mentioned in a booked called "A History of Northumberland' I haven't seen his name mentioned anywhere.

I know this discussion is really about the mine and the building around it. Thomas Davison was one of the original owners but there doesn't seem to be much more than a simple listing of his name on the DMM site. Was wondering who he was and when did he actually sell his share in the mine? 1860? I have an ancestor from this area, wife was from Bedlington, children born in Horton Parish in early 1880s.

1. Where in London did an IRA bus-bomb occur in February 1996? Answer = Aldwych 2. Who was the King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 to 1649? Answer = 3. Who is the patron saint of carpenters? Answer = 4. What is the capital of Nicaragua? Answer = 5. What would your occupation be if your work involved you with MIG and TIG? Answer = 6. Which sportsman was nicknamed ‘Guy the Gorilla’? Answer = 7. Who composed the Pathetique symphony? Answer = 8. Which spirit forms the base of a ‘Horse’s Neck? Answer = 9. How many arms bearing suckers does a squid have? Answer = 6 10. Who had a number one hit with All Kinds of Everything? Answer = 11. Which British PM resigned over the Suez crisis? Answer = 12. How many geese were “a laying” in the Christmas song? Answer = I’ll bet you didn’t know …. Benjamin Disraeli’s false teeth once fell out whilst making a speech in the House of Commons Answer = I didn’t. But I know mine did ☹️

In my family too but they were in coal-mining. They've probably tread common ground. Re the location of the Rose & Crown Inn in the photo:

A fantastic work, researched and written as a tribute to his grandfather who, I'm sure, would be extremely proud of his grandson.

I knew Derek ( @Rigger ) was working on it but didn't know he had created that site. If we get any members asking for info on their Bedlington family members that died in WWI this is an excellent PDF document to refer them to.

Two earlier photos of the Rose & Crown showing the wooden bridge. The Bedlington Coal Company built the first Bedlington Viaduct in June 1850 as part of its line from Newsham to Bedlington. It was a timber trestle bridge designed by Robert Nicholson, 80 feet high and 770 feet long. (From article “Bridges on the Blyth”) In 1930 the old wooden structure was demolished by the London and North Eastern Railway and was replaced by the present iron bridge (The Black Bridge). (From article “Bridges on the Blyth”)

Just looking at the map again... Is the first building in the photo the Rose & Crown?