Middle Rainton Part 4

A Memory of Middle Rainton.

Pathways were made up of compressed dirt, West Street (facing West Rainton), Back Row (facing the Meadow’s Pit), Lewis Street running parallel with Back Row) and Cross Street running parallel with West Street). Krone House faced East Rainton end, there were more streets but I can’t name them.
Middle Rainton was partially demolished in 1939 leaving about 30% of the village still in use. The remainder was demolished in 1965 – all but the last house, “The Fox and Hounds” that went in 1967 to make way for the new duel carriageway.
Newspaper clipping 1965


The village had three pubs, “The Fox and Hounds” with an upstairs dancehall/function room for entertainment, weddings, funerals etc. “The Foresters Arms” was a coaching inn with 3 stables and about 4 tack rooms, situated across the road from the pub, and “The Rose & Crown” with one quite large stable.

There was one grocer, called Ghant, at the top of West Street, two small shops that I recall and a fish and chip shop at East Rainton end operating from a de-commissioned WW1 prisoner of war hut! The hut had been bought from somewhere, and re-erected on the site.

There were two wet fish businesses, The Wilson’s (my family) and Colsin’s who also ran the fish and chip shop and had a small shop in Front Street.
Houses had only cold running water, and communal outside toilets (not flushing) these were usually shared between three or four families. You were lucky if you had your own. Ash from the fires and household rubbish were emptied in the same place and cleaned out weekly by the council.
It used to be dumped in Colsins field, down Meadows Lane from the fish-shop, this got into quite a large hill, but this was abandoned and it was then dumped down by the Dun Well in East Rainton Village.
There was no heating apart from the fire in the range, it was very cold, on some winter days, especially in the rooms without fires. Frost would form heavily on the inside of the windows, and you could see your breath in the air. Going up to bed on a night, you nearly froze. The beds were very cold at first, and heaped with blankets and overcoats, this made them heavy on you, we did have hot water bottles made of stoneware, but these always leaked, and it was better without them in a cold but dry bed. Chilblains were common at this time.

Front Street was a strange mix of housing and although being one terrace, the front section went in and out; the back section was all manner of shapes to accommodate the different types of houses and backyards. A couple of the houses were quite standard with kitchen, living and dining rooms downstairs and 3 bedrooms upstairs. Others were called “back-to-back”, both having a downstairs and upstairs, but with one having the entrance on Front Street and the other an entrance from the back. Other houses were small 2-up, 2-downs and there were several “rooms” (flats). These consisted of a kitchen and bedroom downstairs, and a staircase leading to the same accommodation in the upstairs. Some sets of houses had a quite big communal, paved backyard shared between 4-6 houses; others had a high walled, enclosed yard. Some had a very small yard with a low wall or fence and some went straight onto hard dirt in Back Lane.