Marsden is located on the outskirts of the seaside town

South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England; it is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. The town was once known in Roman Britain, Roman times as ''Arbeia'' and as ''Caer Urfa'' by the Early Middle Ag ...

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

, located on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast. It lies within

historic History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

Background

Marsden was originally a small village, consisting of farms, a few cottages and a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

at Souter Point. Local industry consisted of a small

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

quarry. The nearby Marsden Bay includes the Marsden Rock sea stack.

The Leas The Leas is a large area of land owned and maintained by the National Trust along the coastal cliffs of South Shields, England. It is popular with dog walkers, joggers, kite flyers, horse riders, cyclists and other activities. It is the finishin ...

, located to the north, is an important

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

sanctuary. This land, along with Souter Lighthouse (the first

in the world to be powered by

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in w ...

), is now owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

. Marsden is best known for its beaches including Marsden Beach, with the famous Marsden Rock and pub, the Marsden Grotto. The beaches stretch along to the beach known locally as Boatie's Bay.

Whitburn Colliery

In the 1870s, the Whitburn Coal Company bought the five local quarries, two of which were developed as the Lighthouse (Marsden) Quarries. An attempt to develop a shaft into the Northumberland Coalfield failed in 1874 because of water ingress, but in 1877 a second development using the Kind-Chaudron process, created access to the Bensham seam through two diameter shafts. No.1 shaft had a depth of and No.2, a depth of . The company built the twin-track

South Shields, Marsden, and Whitburn Colliery Railway The South Shields, Marsden, and Whitburn Colliery Railway was a Whitburn Coal Company built twin track branch railway line that ran along the North Sea coast in County Durham, England, from in South Shields to Whitburn Colliery at Marsden vi ...

, leaving the North Eastern Railway line at ,

and travelling to Marsden via two intermediate stations. Built to serve the colliery and opened in May 1879, the line served the Lighthouse limestone quarry, a paper manufactory, and local farms. On 19 March 1888, the line opened to the public.

Marsden village

The industrial development of the area required additional workers. The company built a new Marsden village, located between the Lighthouse Quarries and Whitburn Colliery. Designed to house more than 700 people, there were 135 houses across nine streets, a church and

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

chapel,

Co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

store,

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, school, and a Miners Institute. Located directly on the cliff top, resulting in an exposed and often weather-beaten experience, many wives refused to move to the village, meaning that most miners lived in

and commuted daily using the newly constructed railway. The village gave its name to the "Marsden Rattler", a passenger train which ran on the railway via the North Eastern Railway main line to . By the time of nationalisation in 1945 into 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 "ve ...

, the site employed just under 1,500 miners. The railway line itself became the first nationalised passenger line on 1 January 1947. Passenger service was officially withdrawn on 14 November 1953, but trains ran until 23 November. Marsden boasts two well-known pubs, the Marsden Grotto and the Marsden Inn. The Inn is located on Marsden Lane while the Grotto is hewn in the cliffs facing Marsden Rock. There are a few shops including a reptile shop and several post offices up towards Cleadon Hills. Marsden Lane is the main street leading up to Lizard Lane, Marsden Lane begins at the bottom of Horsley Hill Square before stretching up.

References

3 Marsden Villag
www.marsdenbannergroup.btck.co.uk

External links

Whitburn Colliery
Marsden Colliery
Souter Lighthouse at The National Trust

BBC Online: Marsden, the village that vanished
{{authority control Suburbs of South Shields Populated coastal places in Tyne and Wear