Blackhills Gothic Chapels

Earlier this year I mentioned that while walking the Derwent Walk I stopped to film two chapels at Blackhill cemetery. The footpath runs alongside and I was just struck by the beauty of the Gothic structures. However when filming I realised that one was Christian and the other Jewish. What was surprising is that there is no discernible Jewish population I Consett any more. In Gateshead there is a sizeable Jewish quarter, thus it seemed strange that there was a Jewish cemetery so far from the main Jewish centre of population. It was clear that something had changed.

Therefore I decided to investigate, but that was not the only aspect of the puzzle as the cemetery at Blackhill is also quite large, much larger than you would expect for a town the size of Consett.

As my British reader may know, Consett was once a steel town, the Blast furnaces used to dominate the skyline and even from my village eight miles away the glow of the blast Furness could be seen at night. Also the whole area was covered with a red dust, including my village, as partials of Iron would oxidise in the air before settling.

My initial enquires did validate my early hypothesis that the reason why the cemetery was so large was the high numbers of deaths that occurred in the area from direct industrial accidents at the Iron works and as a result of the pollution by the red dust from the foundry. Also, because of the deaths at the blast furnaces and the associated mines, workers were brought in from all the local populations and especially the Jewish community in Gateshead.

Even my village was once owned by the Consett Iron Works, almost all the houses here were built to house the miners so that the blast Furness could be powered. That doesn't mean that they were good employers, far from it, in fact they were regarded even at the turn of the twentieth century as one of the worst. This was when mine owners were regarded by the general population in the same way that oil companies are today.

While the Mines and the Steel works did provide jobs, it was a really terrible industry to have been in and the deaths at the steel works left a lasting scar on this community.

When the steel works closed in the 1980s while it did cause a lot of unemployment and that legacy still remains today, the effects of the industrial injuries are still with the population.
Since the closure of the steel works though, the environment has really benefited, The River Derwent now has a healthy fish population and associated species, the air is much cleaner and Consett is no longer a place that is avoided by walkers, cyclists and horseback riders.

Also the steel works has left some fantastic stone buildings like these chapels.