East Winlaton Way c1701
It is not clear who constructed this way which led to staithes at Derwenthaugh. There are records of its construction in 1701 which had resulted in cattle owned by Sir James Clavering and those of his tenant escaping from their pasture and wandering to the river. The most likely destination of the Way was Winlaton Mill. The route of this way was later adopted by Western Ways II and III.
The way carried industrial freight as well as coal. Swedish Dannemora iron was brought up to Swalwell on empty keel boats and then taken by this waggonway to Crowley’s Iron Works at Winlaton Mill. The waggonway was also used to transport the finished product to the Tyne.
Northbanks 1699-1723
Charles Montague was the fifth son of the Earl of Sandwich. He formed a partnership with George Baker and they took a lease of land in the vicinity of what is now Marley Hill from the Blakiston family, the then owners of the Gibside estate. The colliery was known as Northbanks and Hutton and it proved to be a very rich coal field, comprising around 60 pits. Montague and Baker set about acquiring the necessary wayleaves to construct a waggonway from the colliery to staithes at Dunston and this became known as the Northbanks or Dunston Way. Montague’s correspondence with Baker relating to the construction of the way has been preserved and is the Newcastle University library. The way operated between 1699 and 1723. It is known from the accounts that 781,675 waggonloads of coal were carried down to Dunston (estimated at 1.75 million tons) between 1704 and 1723, and it is likely that over its lifetime over 2 million tons were transported.
Parts of the embankments of the Northbanks way now support Sunniside Road and a cutting at the south end of Broom Lane is clearly visible. There are signs of a battery crossing the allotments adjacent to Washingwell Lane and the route of the steep descent (or run when the waggoner would have to sit on the convoy or brake) located north of the Dunston Hill Hospital remains as a public footpath.
Northbanks Burdon Moor Branch
In 1722 a branch line of the Northbanks Way was built to Blackburn Fell to serve Montague’s colliery there. Following the closure of the Northbanks way in 1723, this was relaid in 1724 as a branch of the newly created Tanfield Way.
Western Way I (Bucksnook) 1712-1732
In the seventeenth century the price of coal was regulated by the control of supply. All coal exported via the Tyne had to be traded through the City of Newcastle in accordance with quotas set by the Company of Hostmen, the leading members being themselves the major coal owners. By the beginning of the seventeen century, the Hostmen had been relegated to the role of intermediaries known as fitters. Their role was to negotiate the sale of coal to the masters of the sailing vessels, which took the coal down to London and to guarantee that the coal owner would be paid in the event that the buyer failed to pay. They did this in return for a commission. The more coal that was sold, the greater the fitters’ commissions. In this way the fitters lost the incentive to regulate the price of coal by controlling supply.
In a bid to raise the price of coal, a cartel of leading coal owners was set up in 1701 to regulate output and sales. The principal participants were Sir Henry Liddell, Charles Montagu, Sir William Blackett, Ralph Carr and George Pitt. The output of their pits was about two thirds of the Tyneside coal market. The cartel was set up as a Company known as the Coal Office and the objective was to control the quantity of coal on the market by resurrecting the quota system formerly adopted by the Company of Hostmen. The Coal Office did not have the same legal powers as had the Company of Hostmen, but they nonetheless issued quotas and made it clear to the fitters that if they dealt with any producer who did not have a quota they would be excluded from Coal Office work. By these means the price of coal was raised significantly and in the first ten years of the eighteenth century the members of the cartel made healthy profits.
The cartel saw the control of production as the only way to maintain the profitability of the trade, but not all coal owners agreed with them. Sir John Clavering of Axwell Park was not a member of the cartel and owned a colliery at Burnopfield known as Bucksnook. Sir John aided by his wife, Jane and her relatives, the Mallabars, believed that the London market could absorb more coal without a loss of profitability and decided to build a waggon-way between Burnopfield and staiths in Swalwell to transport coal from collieries at Bucksnook, Byermoor and Tanfield Moor.
The Coal Office cartel was determined to do all in its power to stop the building and use of this waggon-way. Enter onto the stage William Coatsworth, a Gateshead Merchant with many financial interests. He had purchased many stakes in collieries, but was not a big player in his own right. He was the Secretary of the Coal Office and a confidante of the Liddells. He was the cartel’s fixer and a force to be reckoned with.
The Claverings were determined to press on with construction. The waggon-way, which became known as Western Way I was built to low standards very quickly, mainly over their own land. Unusually it was built with a single track and passing places for returning waggons. The northern end of the way followed a similar route to the former Hollinside Way over the Clavering’s Axwell land, although a diversion was built in Swalwell. There was then the problem of finding a route between Clockburn Lonnen and Burnopfield. The easiest route was through the Bowes’ Gibside estate, but Lady Bowes was not prepared to grant a wayleave. Clavering, therefore, decided to build the way over land in which he had a partial interest to the east of Gibside known as the Fawdon field and then along a lane which is now the extension of Fellside Road (sometimes called Byermoor Lane) before veering off over Clavering Land to Burnopfield.
The Fawdon Field and the stretch of Byermoor Lane became the focus of the battle. In those days land law was more complicated. As well as freehold there was an interest known as copyhold, now abolished. Copyholders held the land from the Lord of the Manor. The copyholders had the use of the land but the mineral rights belonged to the Lord. It was unclear whether Byermoor Lane was a private road or whether it was public and there was also doubt whether a waggon-way could be constructed on a public highway. The Claverings, members of the cartel and the Bowes all had various interests in the Fawdon field. The Claverings believed they had sufficient rights to build the waggon-way: the cartel believed they had sufficient rights to stop it. Coatsworth acting for the cartel used a variety of tactics to prevent the building of the way, from the acquisition of interests in land, payments to owners in exchange for a promise by them not to grant a wayleave (known as a dead rent), constant legal challenges, the digging of pits in the way along the proposed route and the tearing up of the track. The struggle became known as the War of the waggon-ways. Despite all attempts to stop it the way was constructed and opened in 1712 with great ceremony, but Coatsworth continued his campaign to disrupt it.
Sir John Clavering died in 1714 and the Clavering business fell into the hands of his widow, Lady Jane Clavering. Lady Jane was born a Mallabar and her mother had been a formidable business woman. Lady Jane was to show her own considerable skills in business. She came to terms with Coatsworth who in return for a half share in the Bucksnook colliery granted the necessary wayleaves over the disputed section of the way for Bucksnook coal. After this the way began to prosper and it carried far more coal than could have been achieved by wains. The Claverings were proved right. The London market was able to absorb the additional output and although prices fell initially, they later rallied. By 1717 the Coal Office cartel was to collapse.
Western Way II (via Gibside) 1721-1726
Although Coatsworth had granted a wayleave over the land he controlled to Lady Jane Clavering in respect of Bucksnook coal, he had not come to terms with her in respect of the Byermoor colliery which had been settled on her infant son, James. Coatsworth obtained injunctions to prevent Byermoor coal being transported by the waggon-way. Lady Clavering decided to bide her time. She started to buy land to the east of Burnopfield and coal interests to the south, including the rich ten foot seams around Pontop, in the meantime transporting her Byermoor coal by wain. She then entered into an agreement with Lady Bowes of Gibside for a diversion of the Western Way through the Gibside estate cutting out the Fawdon Field and the areas controlled by Coatsworth.
Lady Clavering then attempted to deny Coatsworth a way for his Bucksnook coal by digging pits and pulling up the old way on her land, making Western Way I entirely useless to him. Coatsworth brought an action in the Court of Chancery in London arguing that by taking this action Lady Clavering was damaging the interests of her son, Sir James who was then 14 years old by denying him the ability to transport his Byermoor Coal by waggon-way. The Lord Chancellor ruled that both ways should be kept open.
The closure of the Northbanks Way in 1723 drove the Montagus into a merger of their concerns with those of the Liddells of Ravensworth and Coatsworth and the building of a new waggon-way in 1726 which was to become the most famous and longest lasting of the Tyneside waggon-ways – The Tanfield Way.
The Liddell, Coatsworth, Montague consortium, had wanted Bowes to join them on the usual terms i.e. in exchange for a surrender of half his coal he would be able to use the consortium’s waggon-way. The way in which Bowes joined was bizarre in the extreme. It will be recalled that Western Ways I and II crossed over the Clavering’s Axwell estate. Old Sir James Clavering’s heir was Young Sir James and the next in line, should Young Sir James have no son was old Sir James’ grandson, Francis. Coatsworth had taken advantage of a disagreement between Francis and his grandmother, Lady Jane and had agreed to pay off Francis’ debts in exchange for a bond that should Francis succeed to the estate he would in effect close the Western Ways. Young Sir James died on 11 May 1726 and Francis immediately honoured the bond by closing both ways, the effect of which was to close the western collieries. The only way Bowes could exploit his coal was to join the consortium on their terms. Sir Francis Clavering leased all of the Axwell’s interests in collieries waggon-ways and wayleaves to the consortium, thereby putting them in control of Western Ways I and II. The consortium was officially known as “the Partnership,” but its members were widely referred to as “the Grand Allies.”