Murton

The Tyne & Wear Metro opened in 1980. Light rail vehicles replaced trains on suburban lines into Newcastle from north and south of the Tyne. The system was integrated with the local bus network, with bus routes redesigned to carry people to Metro interchanges rather than direct into the centre of Newcastle. A single ticket allowed passengers to interchange between bus and Metro. The Metro was designed to be fully wheelchair-accessible right from the start, well before any other UK transport systems.

Northumberland Park is one of the stops on the northern loop of the Tyne and Wear Metro; this is looking towards Whitley Bay from the Algernon Drive bridge. Somewhat confusingly, the bridge ahead carries Station Road; this is because, until its closure in 1977, Backworth station was located here. This view from 1970 shows the old station: NZ3071 : Backworth Station. The line on the left is not part of the Metro system but is used by freight trains running to Blyth and Lynemouth Power Station. There are plans to run a passenger service (to be part of the National Rail network) over it to Ashington.

Situated on Cauldwell Lane, this bar/cafe sells a selection of sandwiches, paninis, jacket potatoes, soup, salad boxes, hot and cold drinks.

This is the Seatonville Road entrance to Crawford Park which boasts two all-weather tennis courts and two bowling greens.

Standing in a pleasant green open space, this artwork was erected when the nearby houses were in the course of construction and, sadly, the name of the artist who created them has been lost in the annals of time.

View from the Silverlink Park Sundial looking in a North easterly direction towards Whitley Bay and Blyth.

The church of St. Alban, erected in 1836 at a cost of £2,200, partly on the eastern portion of the site of the former church, and consecrated on the 12th of October, 1837, is a building of stone, in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave of six bays and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 3 bells: there are 600 sittings, all free. In the churchyard are buried the bodies of 159 of the 204 miners who perished in the terrible catastrophe at Hartley colliery, Thursday, Jan. 16, 1862. The register dates from the year 1837.

On 16 January 1862 occurred the dreadful Hartley Mine Disaster, the memorial stone can be found at the north east side of St. Alban’s Church, Earsdon. 204 men and boys lost their lives in the Hester Pit of Hartley Colliery following the breaking of the engine beam above the single shaft of the mine. The fractured cast metal beam fell into the shaft bringing massive amounts of debris in its wake and blocking the shaft. A large number of miners were underground at the time, it being a changeover time for shifts at the colliery. The workforce were trapped for many days, whilst frantic attempts were made to unblock the shaft, sadly to no avail for when access to the workings were made some six days later all 204 miners had suffocated in the foul underground conditions. The memorial to this tragedy was erected in Earsdon Churchyard where some of the dead were laid to rest, the churchyard was too small to hold all the bodies and the adjacent field was also used for the burials. The funeral cortege is reported to have been so long that as the first group of mourners arrived at the church the last had not left Hartley village over two miles away. The monument is a tall corniced pedestal supporting an obelisk. The names and ages of the dead, a number as young as eleven, are inscribed on the faces of the pedestal and show the harrowing effect to the community and on individual families of the disaster. The monument bears biblical inscriptions and words recording the cause and date of the "fatal catastrophe". The event was instrumental in the bringing forth of legislation in August 1862 requiring all mines to have alternative means of access, in effect two shafts, to prevent a further tragic occurrences of this nature.

Local pub in the village of Earsdon.

Groups of cottages like these - originally designed for retired colliery workers - can be found dotted around the area.

View east along a public footpath that crosses open fields towards South Wellfield.

Looking north-west over open land at South Wellfield

A 1960's block of shops/flats in the middle of the housing estate at South Wellfield.