The expansion of the Port of Sunderland

Hendon, located on the coast, immediately to the south of the borough, was already in use as a port by the later 14th century, although other references to shipping there are few and far between. The shipping of small quantities of coal from the port of Sunderland itself is evident in the medieval records although there is nothing to suggest an established coal trade at this time. The accounts of the Wearmouth monastic cell did, however, record payments for anchorage from time to time from the mid-15th century with activity increasing by the early-16th century. In 1502-3, for instance, the payments of anchorage and groundage, the latter a duty paid when entering port, were received from the masters of three ships, Thomas Boyshay of Lynne (King's Lynn), John Marriott of Rochester and Edward Baxter of Newcastle. In the next year John Younger of Sunderland also paid 6d. for anchorage of a ship of  'Lynne'. Nevertheless, such activity was limited and in 1565, a survey of the 'havens, ports, creeks and landing places' within County Durham described Sunderland as a mere 'fishing town and landing place' in great decay of building and inhabitants. It was only with the development of the salt trade, in the late 1580s and 1590s, in combination with the boost that this brought to coal exports, that the port of Sunderland began its dramatic expansion.