Hetton-le-Hole, Sunderland
Hetton-le-Hole is a small area located in-between Durham and Sunderland. It is positioned on the A182 between Houghton-Le-Spring and Easington.
The famous recording artist and record producer Trevor Horn is from Hetton-le-Hole as well as the footballer Bryan Robson.
The area goes back a thousand years and its name comes from two Anglo Saxon words “Heppedune” or Bramble Hill.
A family called the Hepdons owned a lot of the land and owned a large manor centuries ago. The manor was bordered by Elsemore, it was divided into two parts, Hetton-on-the-Hill and Hetton-in-the-hole. The latter was quite sheltered and occupied the area that ultimately turned into Hetton-le-Hole.
The area has had massive coal mining occurring since Roman times, in 1819 the Hetton Coal Company came into being which stated the process of Shaft Sinking as a way of extracting the coal. The same company also built a wagonway connecting the area to River Wear where the coal could be exported. George Stephenson was the man who built the wagon way which stretched 8 miles.
The methods he adopted to build his wagonway were still used for over a century afterwards. Over 200 new houses were built in the area to house all the new migrant workers who came to work in the coal mines making the area grew rapidly. Only 12 of these houses remain today which are looked after by the Beamish Open Air Museum. The mine itself is totally gone now and the general area around where the mine used to be has been turned into leisure facilities and a quarry where sand is extracted
There is also a windmill farm located in the area that provides electricity to the local grid and a civil parish.