ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand how Sacriston came to be richly endowed with social infrastructure in the period before the Second World War. In 1839, a shaft was sunk and a colliery established in fields below Sacriston Heugh in the parish of Witton Gilbert 5 km north of Durham City. By 1850, Sacriston was established as a small village, comprising a handful of insanitary and overcrowded terraced cottages—the “Cross Streets”—hastily erected by the coal company to accommodate its new workforce. To begin with, Sacriston, like other coalfield villages, lacked basic infrastructure and services. Water and sanitation provision comprised, at best, standpipes and dry closets, while roads were unpaved and street lighting non-existent. Medical provision was rudimentary. The building of St Bede’s Catholic Church is another early and informative episode of social infrastructure-making in Sacriston. County Durham was a major centre of mass Irish immigration in the 19th century.
