Scarecrows and Traditions

Several years ago I was travelling through the North Northumberland village of Norham. It was rather deserted at the time, except for a shadowy figure in a hooped shirt, mask and carrying a sack, scaling a ladder to an upstairs window. I did a double take and nearly crashed the car. Then I realised we were also surrounded by a completely lifeless postman and a policeman. It had a very paganish feel to it like I had just arrived on Summer Isle the fictional setting of the Whicker Man Film. They were scarecrows. Very clever, humourous and well-put-together scarecrows.

So... when I saw an advert for a scarecrow festival at Rennington, near Alnwick, last summer I had to go. I wasn't disappointed. Scarecrows lined the village streets, churchyard and almost all of the residents gardens. They were highly imaginative and often humorous. Money was being raised for good causes. So, was this all part of a centuries-old spooky, rural tradition that a pit village lad like myself really ought not to ask questions about?

No. Apparently these scarecrow festivals have only been going for about a decade or less. They are an invented or revived tradition. So, were there any ancient traditions left in Northumberland. I turned to the book by Frank Atkinson: "Life and Tradition in Northumberland and Durham" for answers. The village of Whalton, south-west of Morpeth can probably claim top spot for keeping alive traditions. Atkinson reproduces two photographs from Whalton in 1905 depicting the Baal ceremony and a Kern Baby from harvest time. Even today the villagers hold the Baal Fire Ceremony on the 4th July, which provides an excuse for some morris and barn dancing and a few drinks. Tomlinson in his "Comprehensive guide to Northumberland" first published in 1888 writes

...the villagers observed the custom, on the 4th. July (old Midsummer-eve) of kindling on the green a large bonfire, and then dancing around it and leaping through it - a relic of solar worship which has come down uninterrupted from Pagan times.

Whalton Area (click to Enlarge)

This from sacred-texts.com elaborates:

Readers of the Old Testament are well acquainted with the condemnation passed upon the worship of Baal, but some of them may be surprised to know that there is a custom in Northumberland of lighting Baal fires on St. John's Eve, which is a relic of ancient Baal worship. The identity between the celebration of the pagan rite of old and of the modern remainder is too obvious to be doubted. The ancients passed their children through the fire, and the villagers at Whalton used to jump over and through the flames... Of the Whalton custom a modern writer says:" As midsummer approaches, much wood is marked out for the bonfire, sometimes with the consent  of local farmers. When this has been cut, it is brought into the village with a certain amount of formality. On the evening of the 4th July a cart is borrowed and loaded with branches of faggots, some of the men get into the shafts, more are hooked on by means of long ropes, and then, with a good deal of shouting and horn blowing, the lumbersome vehicle is run down into the village." The same site for the fire is chosen year after year, and it has never been changed. The village turns out en masse to see the bonfire built. The children join hands and dance round the stack of wood and branches until they are tired; youths and maidens also dance a little distance away. At dark a cry is raised: "Light her!" Soon the whole village is illuminated by a huge blaze, and the Baal fire is at its height...

1905 Whalton Baal Ceremony

1905 Whalton Kern Baby

Veronica Blackett on www.whaltonvillage.co.uk writes:

The word 'bale' originated in Northumberland and was used to describe beacon fires lit on castle, pele and hill top to rouse the country when raiders were spied riding over the Border. The Morris dancers come to Whalton to entertain and the children hold hands to dance around the fire; they used to leap through the flames but this tradition has been given up... 

Harvest festivals still continue today, of course, but probably not to the same extent as in former times. Once again, Whalton had a strong tradition  in the creation of the Kern Baby.

Hutchinson writing in the 1770s in his History of Northumberland described:

In some places, an Image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with musick and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen...

What he was describing was the Kern Baby. Kern is most likely a corruption of Corn. Getting the harvest in successfully was of greater significance in past times than today with our greater use of technology and not so much of the population being engaged in rural activities. The traditions have also become more based in a church environment.

These old traditions and customs are a great way for communities to come together though. It would be nice to think they could continue.

Hastings Pit

Location of Seaton Delaval Collieries (click to enlarge)

Ordnance Survey maps from the 1890s to the 1950s show a curious feature at Seaton Sluice on the links just north of the current Astley Arms. A petrol filling station stood very near this site from the 1960s until just a few years ago. The feature is called Hastings Pit (coal level). Coal level, I subsequently discovered, is a term used in other parts of Britain for a drift mine or horizontal shaft. Curious, I thought, because of its location, the small amount of buildings for a colliery on the site, no surrounding pit village, slag heap and the lack of any obvious transport links. So was it a colliery in its own right? Who owned it? What could I find out about the site in general?

Seaton Delaval area 10 inch to mile OS map c1951 (click to enlarge)

I turned to the Durham Mining Museum website for answers. Hastings Pit is listed as part of the extensive Seaton Delaval Colliery group, which in 1929 became the Hartley Main collieries. Hastings pit was opened in 1875. Its location was listed as OS map co-ordinates NZ299764. Unfortunately, this is not the same as the Hastings Pit location on the Seaton Sluice links. It is, in fact, located further inland at New Hartley. Further examination of the mid 20th century maps revealed a "half drift" mine just inland from Hastings Pit and the similar Avenue mine just south west of Seaton Delaval Hall. Very little information was found to be published about these sites.

Avenue Pit Ruins - embedded from bikerbilly67 on Flickr

None of these smaller pits were shown on any of the major colliery maps of the time. A small set of ruins is all that remains at the Avenue site. A local man has published a collection of photographs on the Flickr sharing website. Two that are featured are of Avenue mine and comments accompanied the postings. The comments mention that the pit was opened in 1932 and was possibly the re-opening of an earlier shaft. The ruinous buildings were once the explosives store. A drift mine nearby was the escape tunnel and an underground roadway joined this colliery to the main Seaton Delaval collieries. A pit canteen existed on the site. No photographs were found, however, of the colliery in operational days.

The Seaton Delaval Colliery company had a good supply of housing for its workforce at the main site and would not need to construct a village around these smaller mines.

The function of these little pits had not yet been established though. Documentary evidence was proving to be scant. However, they would still have been in existence within living memory of many of the older inhabitants of the area. An appeal was put out for information across the social media sites. So far this has not produced any results.

I started then to develop the theory that Hastings Pit at Seaton Sluice was probably connected underground to the main Hastings Pit at Hartley. It would probably serve as an escape route and ventilation for the main colliery. Could the book by former local miner James Tuck "The Collieries of Northumberland" provide any clues to any other functions? He mentioned that the Seaton Delaval colliery group eventually had eight operational shafts, but gave very little individual information on each one.

However, the Ashington Coal Company operated in a similar manner to Seaton Delaval and Tuck recorded:

In 1924 the first drift, the ConeyGarth, was driven at the mine about a mile to the west and close to the site of the original "Fell 'Em Doon" mine. Later a second drift, the Bothal Barns, was driven approximately two-and-a-half miles south west of the colliery on the outskirts of the village of Bothal. While the Coneygarth drift was a coal-drawing drift, the Bothal Barns was used purely for the purposes of man-riding.

There was a history of pits opening, closing and re-opening for a different purpose and that is perhaps what was happening at Seaton Delaval.

ADDITION 05 JULY 2013

Further reading of the "Collieries of Northumberland and Durham" revealed that my theory that Hastings Pit was indeed a drift mine connected to the Hartley (Hastings Pit). This photo of the entrance to the drift was also discovered: