Southwick: medieval to industrial village

At the opening of the 18th century, Southwick appeared little altered from the middle ages. The vacant riverside land known as the Wear waste, though, was becoming especially valuable. Close to the port, it already profited from the town’s industrial boom. Here were a glass factory, ballast tips and a ferry point, and by 1779 brick and lime kilns downstream of the ferry crossing. In contrast the village, separated from the river by a steep gradient, was largely agricultural. It had one windmill and some small and scattered limekilns. The descendants of the pioneering entrepreneur George Grey, owners of a large estate west and north of the settlement, had given up industrial interests in favour of a polite lifestyle. The passing trade was much less than in Hylton or the harbour, for the ferry here did not connect directly with main roads.Nevertheless, change did not pass Southwick by. What happened on the shoreline impacted very much on the settlement. The riverside industries needed workers, and raw materials were brought to the river through Southwick from the north. The plans here, which we have re-drawn from maps produced about 40 years apart, show the changes in the village centre. There were few additional dwellings, but the road system had developed markedly. There were more, and much clearer, routes around the village. Where had been only farm labourers’ tracks, there emerged distinct public routes. Private boundaries in 1779 were marked much more plainly, particularly around the village green, than in 1737. Ferryboat Lane, now Scott’s Bank, followed a sharper line from the green to the glassworks on the shore, whereas the old route had meandered and split around houses and fields. Stoney Lane, then called Ballast-shore Lane, was created from a field boundary between 1737 and 1746. It led from the western end of the green to the riverside, and was later to become a well trodden route to shipyards and engineering works in Low Southwick.