Quaking Houses is a small village near to the town of

Stanley Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It may have been originally settled by

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

, but during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

it developed into a

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

village with traditional terraced houses. The Quaker origin is supported by the 1873 name for a mine with two shafts at the village called Quaker House Pit. However, an alternative origin is suggested by the following; the 1865 OS Map shows a farm called Quaking House to the north at Anniefield Plain and a colliery railway line ran past this farm branching to the village mine. This colliery railway line was called the Quaking House Branch Line. A colloquial name for the village was "banana goat island" perhaps reflecting the livestock kept in the extensive allotments and grazing area around the village. Accessible by road only from the main

South Moor South Moor is a village in County Durham, in England. It is located to the south-west of Stanley on the northern slope of the Craghead valley. It is a well-developed village, yet still semi-rural, containing a main street (Park Road) of around ...

Road, the village is dominated by one large road, with large strips of terraced housing on either side, both facing outwards. The large road is divided into several different street names: Third Street and Foil Cloth Street, with Woodside Terrace and Fellside Terrace located at the west end. A large turning circle enables large vehicles, particularly buses, to change direction. A shorter road parallel to the large road once had two streets, First Street and Second Street. The Community Hall which opened in 1997 stands where First street was once situated and Second Street still remains. The original housing stock was tied property which passed to the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

following

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of the

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

industry. The properties in Fellside and Woodside Terrace were larger than the other properties and were originally occupied by people with "middle management" occupations in the mining industry. At one time at the bottom of Fourth Street stood a walled reservoir and at the top of the village on the fell in the woodland was a dam, both of which had been required for the mines in the area. The William Pit, colloquially known as the Billy Pit, and which, prior to nationalisation, was owned by the South Moor and Holmside Colliery Company M&HCCstood near the reservoir. SM&HCC also operated a drift mine in the Stanley Burn valley to the north of Woodside Terrace.

References

External links

{{authority control Quakerism in the United Kingdom Villages in County Durham Quakerism in England Stanley, County Durham