Whitehill Point Staiths

Clark's Walls End Drop, Hotspur Spout and Northumberland Spout. Coal drops at the southern end of Backworth Wagonway (HER 1113). Whitehill Point was the shipping point for the eighteenth century wagonways from the scattered pits of Flatworth, Shiremoor and Murton. Royalties belonged to the Duke of Northumberland and the earliest staith was the Northumberland Spout which served these pits. Originally this would have had a large covered staith house with under-cover storage for coal when the tide was wrong for loading. The staith house is visible on the 25" Ordnance Survey of 1858. The other two loading points, Clarks Walls End Drop (probably named after a partner in Earsdon Coal Company, whose Duke and Duchess Pit used this drop) and Hotspur Spout (named after Harry Hotspur who was an ancestor of the Duke of Northumberland, responsible for putting Henry IV on the throne. He was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403) belonged to Murton Colliery. They later became the Backworth Staiths. Between 1884 and 1898 the old staiths were cleared away and new ones built by the Tyne commissioners (HER 2142).