"John Bowes & Partners are working the coal royalty at their Hobson pit, where the Main Coal and Busty Bank seams are met. The former is from 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches thick, and 50 fathoms from the surface, while the later is 90 fathoms deep, and 7 feet thick, with a band of fire-clay 9 to 12 feet wide in the centre ; about 140,000 tons are put out per annum, which with the coke ovens and fire brick works gives employment to 300 men and boys."

Whellan's 1894 Directory of County Durham via Durham Mining Museum

NEHL - The Hobson Pit was one of the oldest in the area, and dominated the local landscape. By the 1850s several coke ovens and a pumping engine were constructed next to the railway linked to the Pontop & Jarrow, with at least 2 rows of housing for pitmen and their families. A hotel was constructed nearby, and by the 1890s at least half a dozen rows accommodated the workers. The waste heaps were to be found in the north east of the site, connected by tramway to the shaft.

The site is now partly taken up by an industrial site and reclaimed as woods.

Hobson's Category D Village:
Hobson at Burnopfield exists in name only these days, with a big ol capital D strewn across this old pit village.

Now this was a very old working, first being sunk in 1742 and ended up in the Bowes mining empire - the same as that at Marley Hill and the Gateshead area. Rows started bobbing up just before the 1850s to accomodate the pitmen as technology improved and the working grew. By the 1890s though this place was sizeable - A good 10 rows with a chapel, hotel and village smithy all eminating from the central winding house and buildings.

This one was designated a D village in 1951, 17 years before the pit even closed. There were signs of the colliery contracting, as employment figures slowly dwindled and the authorities will have known this pit wasn't going to last forever. The rows will have probably been quite old too - between 70 and 110 years old by the 50s and some forlorn (imagine the single storey cottages you see on many photos). After they were demolished folk probably travelled in by bus from Burnopfield, a commuting option not afford for those in previous generations.

Hobson is just one of a string of old villages to become industrial estates. On the fringes of larger settlements on dirty cheap land - they were ideal for a changing economy when service and light industry started to come to the furore. I came through on a Sunday and there was little sign of life. Compare this with what came before. Sadly I've found no images of the village itself.