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#1
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Whilst looking through the newspapers for articles on the colliery, I came across this intersting advert from the Courant of 20 October 1792:
"Acklington Park, capital tin works and farm to be sold by auction. A capital set of rolling and tin works, with dwelling house and extensive warehouses, situate on the River Coquet.....consisting of a rolling mill, with an extensive and commodious set of tin works, with the various utensils, conveniences and buildings for carrying on the trade. The works are in complete condition, and constantly supplied with a head and fall of 15 feet at the wheels, and capable of making 5 thousand boxes of tin annually, with the additional convenience of working a forge, and other works from the same head of water. The whole of the buildings are in good repair, and may be appropriated to cotton mills, or any manufactory requiring a powerful head of water..... Also a compact farm, consisting of 70 acres of land, and upwards of 20 dwellings suitable for the people employed in the works. There is an unlimited right to hew stone for building, and to dig clay for bricks..." There was certainly a weaving industry at the Park. Was this its predecessor? |
#2
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Hodgson has some of the history of the place:
The rural calm of Acklington park was broken in the year 1775, when a firm of speculators, attracted by the unfailing water-power of the Coquet, acquired a lease of land from the duke of Northumberland with liberty to erect a foundry for the manufacture of tin and iron. By leases granted by John Archbold of Acton and Edward Cook of Brainshaugh, the promoters acquired powers to erect a weir or dam across the Coquet, and to impound its waters against the lands of the grantors. The dam, engineered by Smeaton, was built of ` firm, close stone,' and pounded `the water so high as to cause upwards of 15 feet head and fall at the wheels ' of the works, and formed ` a pound in the river upwards of 2,000 yards long and 60 yards wide.' Handicapped by distance from market the works, with an unexpired lease of forty-five years, were advertised in 1791 to be sold. They might ` be employed alternately one week in rolling tin and next in rolling half blooms'; there was at Warkworth `a warehouse' and shipping place where at spring tides there is water sufficient for vessels drawing from 8 to 9 feet of water.' Application was to be made to Mr. George Kendal at the premises, Mr. Edward Kendal of Beaufort Forge, near Abergavenny, or to Mr. Jonathan Kendal at Swansea. The premises were purchased by John Reed, a woollen draper in the Groat Market, Newcastle, who, in the Newcastle papers of 1796, was advertising for weavers for the woollen manufactory at Acklington, and a year later advertised that as he was retiring from the retail trade, wholesale customers should address their letters to his `warehouse, near the White Cross, Newcastle, or to the manufactory at Acklington park.' Reed disposed of the works in 1828 to David Thompson, a Galashiels manufacturer, a neighbour and correspondent of Sir Walter Scott, and himself a versifier. In his family the manufactory remained, and was carried on till 1884, when it was finally discontinued. |
#3
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Regarding the reference to a George Kendal giving up his lease early Hodgson notes:
Tradition says Kendal took a dislike to the place through the drowning of one of his daughters in the water above the caul, `1785, September 20th, Susannah, daughter of George Kendal of Acklington park, buried ' *. *Warkworth Register [Caul = Dam.] I'm not surprised he wanted away after that. Those shady stretches of the river can be quite gloomy at the best of times, and he would be haunted by the incessant sound of the water going over that weir. Poor fellow. |
#4
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I wonder if they used coal from the Acklington Colliery at the foundry
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#5
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The shipping point and warehouse referred to on the Coquet was at what today
would be a point half way along the Warkworth Road from Amble - at this early time that is as far as the road went. |
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