Byers Green
Byers Green Institute
Last Updated:
30 Sept 2024
Byers Green
This is a
Institute, Reading Room, Library
54.701930, -1.656166
Founded in
Current status is
Extant
Designer (if known):
Still serving as a community space
Byers Green is a fascinating little agricultural community, borne from the hall on the northern tip but expanded thanks to Byers Green Colliery on the southern side. Therefore, it’s a funny little patchwork of traditional rural cottages and pit houses.
This is the very old village Institute, built in 1857 some 16 years years after the pit sank. Like many buildings I’ve shared recently, such amenities were desired and provided for the many families who moved here for work. 2000 people lived here by the 1850s.
This institute was designed for “moral and intellectual improvement”, and contained a library and reading room upon opening. In fact, it was hoped to “productive of much good, by enlarging and purifying the intellect and so influencing the conduct, refining and elevating the social intercourse of man with man”. Basically the colliery manager was worried about them getting pissed every night.
Subscribers included the Bishop of Durham who provided £5, and was founded by John Robson - the manager or viewer of the pit. It was open until 9:30pm, providing ample time for pitmen to sneak in an hour or two of reading before they got home.
John Robson did have an unfortunate life however which may have spurred on his somewhat philanthropic efforts. His son William Henry, died down the pit 6 years earlier while he was training to follow in his dads footsteps. He entered a section of the colliery unused for 2 years with a Davy lamp, with others who had candles. The candles ignited a severe gas explosion, which “peeled the skin off” his arm and left fatal injuries to his whole body. Despite him being the only one with the safety lamp, he was the only one who died.
Through later years, the institute held your typical community functions - flower shows, political meetings (including some for Irish home rule - there was a good Irish contingent here) , industrial shows and concerts. They also had their own football team.
It appears it’s still open as the village hall given the appearance of the defib and village notices. I’d like to think there’s some sort of memorial to William Henry here.
Listing Description (if available)
Both maps above illustrate Byers Green between the 1890s and 1910s, the former is the first to feature the institute as it was opened in the same year as the surveying. Even through these later decades, there is still continued change in a village with a pit operating some 50 years prior.
There are two clear distinct sections of the village. The original village and its Front Street to the south, and the pit village to the north. The agricultural village was consumed by the mining population at this point, and by the 1890s featured nearly every expected amenity - a brickworks, Wesleyan & Primitive chapels and the institute we speak of opposite lodge terrace. By the 1910s there was also a picture theatre, club and a new primary school replacing that on Front Street, which became the Sunday School. The infant school still stands on Hagg Road.
Let's turn back the clock to 1847, when this tithe map was published of the village. The pit had been open for around 6 years, so the settlement was yet to experience the sweeping transformation we see from the next half century. Looking at the apportionment with the map, we can see much of it is still agricultural, and owned by the Bishop of Durham, the Shafto's and the Fenwick's. The West Durham Railway lines the west of the village, connecting the Byers Green Colliery with the West of Durham for onwards shipment and utilised an engine house at Todd Hill to pull waggons from Sunnybrow. I can't be certain, but I presume coal from here led to Hartlepool.
The rendered Institute in 2024. Sadly, there are seldom photographs of the Institute in history.
