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Marley Hill is a former colliery village about six miles to the south west of Gateshead, near the border between Tyne and Wear and County Durham. It has been part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead since 1974. Prior to this it was part of Whickham Urban District. It lies within the Whickham South & Sunniside electoral ward of the Blaydon parliamentary constituency. Neighbouring towns and villages include Burnopfield (2 miles away); Sunniside, Gateshead (about half a mile away); Byermoor (just under a mile away). Marley Hill, Sunniside, Burnopfield and Byermoor all share Whickham's "NE16" postcode prefix, despite Burnopfield sitting just over the border in County Durham. The actual area considered to be Marley Hill for postal purposes etc. is actually much larger than it would first appear, as there were originally more houses to the south and south east, nearer the colliery. Birkheads Cottages and Hedley Hall Farm are the farthest properties away from the village itself, these being about a mile to the south-east. Hedley Hall Farm's address is anomalously listed as "Hedley Lane, Sunniside", despite actually being further away from Sunniside than Birkheads Cottages, whose addresses read "Birkheads Lane, Marley Hill". ==Housing== The village consists of several rows of terraced houses, along with a number of detached and semi-detached properties. The oldest existing properties are the former vicarage, the school house, three large detached houses on St. Cuthbert's Road, two stone-built cottages (accessed by a lane leading off to the north-east from St. Cuthbert's Road) and the five rows of houses which form Glamis Terrace, Cuthbert Street and Church Street. The majority of the properties on Cuthbert Street and Church street were built as two up-two downs, and at one time had outside toilets and tin baths which would have been placed in front of the fire. At some point the houses were modernised and had indoor bathroom/toilets installed. Some of the outside toilets with their adjoining coal houses remain, but a number have been demolished, or have had the toilet removed and are used as sheds. The houses on Glamis Terrace were intended for colliery officials, and are therefore fewer in number and considerably larger than the others, with gardens at both the front and rear. It is named Glamis because the Bowes-Lyons, the Earls of Strathmore, who were ancestors of the Queen (Glamis Castle was the childhood home of the Queen Mother) owned the colliery and the surrounding land, including the Gibside estate. Church Street and Cuthbert Street are named after St. Cuthbert's Church, which stands at the corner of St. Cuthbert's Road, opposite the former Miners Welfare Institute (now a community centre housing a nursery and a performing arts school) and the aged miner's cottages. Church Street is part of the A692 to Consett and forms the main road through the village. The south side of Church Street differs slightly in that the houses all have front gardens, and (with the exception of the first house on the row) are slightly larger, with three bedrooms, and the presence of extra chimney pots indicating that they have additional fireplaces in the kitchen and one of the rear bedrooms. These larger houses also mostly have two narrow windows side by side in the living room and front bedroom, although some have been altered and had larger single windows installed. The bathrooms of these properties occupy a small extension on the back of the house, as opposed to the smaller properties, whose bathrooms were created by partitioning the rear bedroom. Aside from this, the houses are similar in appearance to those on the north side of the road and on Cuthbert Street, which have single windows, and fireplaces in the front rooms only. The only house on these three rows which differs significantly from the others is the first house on the north side of Church street, which consists of two houses which have been knocked through into one property. There is no vehicular access to the front of the properties on Cuthbert Street, with a grassed area occupying the space between the two rows of houses. The village also had a number of prefab houses, which occupied the large grassed area at the top of Cuthbert Street. These were known as Noble Street and Raby Street. They seem to have been built at some time in the 1950s, and can be seen on the 1960 and 1966 OS maps, but appear to have been demolished by 1970. The section of road which continues past the rear of Cuthbert Street is actually the eastern end of Raby Street. The junction where Noble Street began can be clearly seen at the point where two concrete bollards now stand opposite the top of Cuthbert Street. During very dry weather, the outline of the road becomes clearly visible as a wide strip of lighter coloured grass, running in a westerly direction from the bollards towards Blackamoor Hill. The original concrete surface of Raby Street is still in situ, and runs parallel to Noble Street, beside the hedge. Large numbers of this type of house were built all over the country as a temporary measure to replace housing stock lost during German bombing raids, the vast majority being demolished once replacement housing had been built, but some remain. Examples can be seen locally on Valley Drive in Swalwell, and on The Drive and Southfield Road near the junction with Washingwell lane on the Watergate Estate in Whickham. The field adjacent to the area formerly occupied by the prefabs is now used for cattle grazing, but was at some point used as a rubbish tip, evidence of which can be seen in the form of the old bottles, jars and clay pipes which can sometimes be found poking out of the ground, as well as the presence in the soil of large quantities of ash from coal fires. To increase wartime coal production, the government introduced opencast mining all over the country. One such mine was located in the field immediately to the west the rubbish tip, and appears on the 1951 OS map. The newer properties in the village are those in the St. Cuthbert's Park estate and Sandygate Mews, which are accessed from St. Cuthbert's road. St. Cuthbert's Park consists of a mixture of detached and semi-detached properties, and was built in the 1990s, as was Sandygate Mews. Sandygate Mews consists of five large detached properties. These, along with the vicarage and The Grange, which stands across St. Cuthbert's Road from the church, are some of the largest houses in the village. The former church hall opposite the entrance to Sandygate Mews has also been converted into a house, and there are another two large properties just to the south of the school. One of these is relatively new, while the other one, Redlands, appears on the 1921 OS map. A building marked "mission room" on the site of the church hall also appears on this map. The building which presently occupies the site does not appear to be old enough to have been built before 1921, but was presumably built to replace an earlier structure of similar dimensions. After falling into disuse, the hall stood empty for a number of years, before finally being bought by a property developer. Although the general outline of the structure has not been altered, its conversion into a home has otherwise rendered it considerably different in appearance. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Marley Hill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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