Bridge St, Morpeth - 01670 623455 morpeth.tic@northumberland.gov.uk

Ashington is located in south east Northumberland, which is a largely urban area adjacent to Newcastle. Most of the area is of flat non-undulating ground, formed during Carboniferous period when ancient tropical swamp forests were buried and formed the coal seams that have given this area its significance. The local geology is of yellow sandstone. The topography of the town is quite flat. The land to the north west of the town is slightly undulating due to mining subsidence, which sometimes causes farmland to be flooded. The south east part of the town is slightly raised giving views to the north across Ashington. From certain parts of town the Cheviot Hills are visible about 30 miles (48 km) to the north.

The town is of roughly a square shape lying north to south. The town centre is to the North of the town. south of this are residential areas. Farmland is on both east and west flanks. The south part is residential with the River Wansbeck to the south. To the east of the town is the small coastal town of Newbiggin and to the West is the small village of Bothal on the River Wansbeck. South of the town is the small village of North Seaton which once had its own pit. North of the town about 2 miles is the village of Linton and north east of the town is Lynemouth.

Also to the north of the town is a large lake called Queen Elizabeth II lake. This is surrounded by pine woodland plantation. The original Ashington colliery was on the north west of the town and the smaller Woodhorn pit was on the north east.

The first evidence of mining is from bell-shaped pits and monastic mine workings discovered in the 20th century during tunnelling. Ashington developed from a small hamlet in the 1840s, as the Duke of Portland built housing to encourage people escaping the Irish potato famine to come and work at his nearby collieries. As in many other parts of Britain, "deep pit" coal mining in the area declined during the 1980s and 1990s leaving just one colliery, Ellington which closed in January 2005. In 2006 plans for an opencast mine on the outskirts of the town were put forward, although many people objected to it. During the heyday of coal-mining, Ashington was considered to be the "world's largest coal-mining village". There is now a debate about whether Ashington should be referred to as a town or a village; if considered as a village it would be one of the largest villages in England.

As coal mining expanded, more people left the countryside and settled in Ashington. This led the Ashington Coal Company to build parallel rows of colliery houses. Some newcomers came from as far as Cornwall to make use of their tin-mining skills.

With the growing coal industry came the need for a railway link. Ashington was linked to the Blyth and Tyne Railway in the 1850s, and also to the East Coast Main Line near Ulgham (pronounced Uffham). The railway was also used by passenger trains until the Beeching Axe in 1964 closed the railway station, called Hirst station when opened in the 1870s. The railway runs south towards the steep-sided River Wansbeck valley, originally crossed by a wooden viaduct, which was replaced by today's steel-built Black Bridge.

In 1913 the Ashington hospital was built. It is about ¼ mile (400 metres) from the town centre. The hospital was expanded in the 1950s and 60s with large new wings. Several schools opened in Ashington too. Traditionally the area to the east of the railway was called Hirst and that to the west was Ashington proper. Although collectively called Ashington both halves had their own park: Hirst Park (opened in 1915) in the east and The People's Park in the west.

The colliery-built houses followed a grid plan. The streets in the Hirst End running north to south were named after British trees, such as Hawthorn Road, Beech Terrace, and Chestnut Street. The east-west running streets were numbered avenues, starting with First Avenue near the town centre, finishing at Seventh Avenue towards the southern end. After the 1920s houses in Ashington were built by the council, and were most often semi-detached houses, such as Garden City villas. These occupied much of the fields in the Hirst area. New estates were built in different areas. The biggest building programme was in the late 1960s and saw Ashington extend south from Seventh Avenue opposite the Technical College towards North Seaton and south eastwards towards the A189. Some of the houses at the top end of Alexandra Road were private homes. During this building programme several new schools were built, for example Coulson Park, Seaton Hirst Middle. Community shops and a nightclub were built off Faifield Drive. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw construction of Nursery Park opposite North Seaton Hotel. This south to the banks of the River Wansbeck. The late 1980s and 1990s saw the building of the Wansbeck Estate between the River Wansbeck and Green Lane.

In the late 1960s the area by the railway station was developed into Wansbeck Square, housing a supermarket, council offices and a public library, built partly over the railway line.

In 1981 the Woodhorn pit closed and its chimney was demolished. In the late 1980s this became a museum. In 1988 Ashington Pit was closed and is now occupied by a business park. In 2004 the hospital was demolished with the new hospital located near Woodhorn being used instead. In the early 2000s maisonette flats in various parts of Hirst were demolished and parts of the Moorhouse and Woodbridge estate opposite Woodhorn pit were demolished.

The railway is still used by the Alcan aluminium plant nearby and there have been calls to restore the railway station for passenger use with services to Newcastle.

An Ashington urban district was created in 1896, covering part of the parish of Ashington and Sheepwash and part of the parish of Bothal Demesne. It took in Hirst in 1914, then Sheepwash, most of Woodhorn and the remainder of Bothal Demesne in 1935. The urban district survived until 1974, when under the Local Government Act 1972 it became part of the Wansbeck district.

In October 2008, plans to opencast 2m tonnes of coal in Ashington were approved. UK Coal's plans which were first submitted in 2005, would create 60+ jobs.