The Norman Cornish Trail

 

Norman Cornish Trail

 

Norman Cornish (1919-2014) was an acclaimed painter born in Spennymoor. Though perhaps best known for his ‘mining scenes’ depicting the work and socialising of the miners of the Durham coalfield, Cornish depicted a wide array of subjects and the breadth and quality of his work make the oft-attributed label “pitman painter” something of a misnomer. True, Cornish worked as a miner for most of his working life, and the lives of miners and their families form the backdrop of many of his most well-known works. But the term “pitman painter” suggests that Cornish’s reputation rests on the novelty of his being a working miner who painted, rather than on the brilliance of the art itself. Like many great artists, his inspiration was drawn from the world he inhabited. As Cornish once said: “Spennymoor has all that a painter needs to depict humanity.” And it is perhaps his ability to depict the humanity of his subjects that distinguishes his work from some of those with whom he is sometimes compared, such as L.S Lowry, whose depictions of industrial Salford seem much more detached and impersonal. Cornish died in 2014 at the ripe old age of 94, but his popularity has only increased since. In the years following his death, a blue heritage plaque was unveiled outside of his former home on Whitworth Terrace and Spennymoor Council have created a walking trail taking in parts of Spennymoor associated with his life and work. The Norman Cornish Trail is the subject of this blog entry. I will provide some history about the places marked on the trail as well as other notable places we pass on the way. I provide a description of the route at the bottom of the post, should you want to follow it.

A Walk Through History

The walk I outline at the bottom proceeds from the Auckland Way car park on Whitworth road and makes its way to the first Cornish site of interest at his former home on 67 Whitworth Terrace, which is now commemorated with a heritage plaque. Cornish lived here from 1967 until his death. There are some old houses on this street; some late 19^th century some early 20^th century. When I last walked here (Dec 2021), some of the old stone signage was visible on Ken Warne’s convenience store, highlighting its former purpose as a branch of Bishop Auckland Flour and Provision Cooperative. Notice the Wheatsheaf sculpture at the top of the building with the sickle next to it. Above this, the text reads “Unity is Strength”. This building was built in 1923.

On the opposite side of the road from Ken Warnes are two red bricked houses at the entrance to Osborne Road (61 and 62 Clyde Terrace). These are Grade II listed buildings, built around 1904. According to British Listed Buildings website, the wartime Prime Minster Lloyd George took tea in number 62 during his visit to Welsh Chapel in Spennymoor (at the height of the mining industry, there was substantial migration of Welsh families seeking work). A greenhouse once stood on the flat plateau at the top of the building, as depicted in a photograph in Bob Abley’s second volume of Spennymoor Remembered.

                                               Above: The houses at Clyde Terrace. 

Further along the main road is the first of the Cornish information boards visited on the route outside of St Paul’s church. The church has stood here since 1858, with several additions added after that date. The visible appearance of the church has altered substantially since then owing in large part to a fire which occurred in 1953, which destroyed the church roof. One key difference since then is the addition of the copper spire above the clock tower. There used to be grave stones on the front part of the green with a wall facing the front street. This part of the wall no longer exists and the gravestones are at the side and back of the church. According to Abley, the fire was deliberately caused by a disgruntled miner who had been penalised for stealing the communion wine.

                                                               St Paul's Church

Cornish’s painting of the church was from the perspective of Edward Street, which the trail passes through and it is here that the second information board is found. The trail meets Rosa Street at the bottom of the road. Cornish painted Rosa Street school, which is situated near the start of the Auckland Way. This is now a walking/cycling path which runs to Bishop Auckland. It was once a very important railway line servicing the nearby mines at Whitworth Colliery and Merrington Park. Whitworth pit was the the first in Spennymoor to open in 1839 and its close proximity to this part of the town explains the age of some of the buildings here, such as the large Methodist chapel on the other end of the street, which was built in 1869.

                               The old Methodist Chapel along the road from Rosa Street school 

The trail then makes its way to the Victorian Jubilee Park. The park was opened in 1889 and it remains an impressive and well-kept public garden, with tennis courts, a bowls field, sensory garden, crazy golf and more recently skating ramps. The Cornish information board in the park is situated in front of a memorial to the miners who died in the local collieries. The memorial takes the form of a coal cart running along a track, with a small pile of coal on top of a bed of flowers. There is also a miners’ lamp in a metal framed glass case. The information board celebrates Cornish’s ‘mining scenes’. One of his most famous mining scenes depicts miners walking the bumpy and windy old track from Spennymoor to Dean and Chapter Colliery in Ferryhill, where Cornish spent much of his working life.

                                    A memorial to the miners killed in local collieries, Jubilee Park

 

The trail leaves the park to enter Dundas Street which it follows to the main road near the Town Hall. The official start of the Cornish trail is at the town hall. Construction of the town hall began in 1913, but was not opened until 1916 due to delays caused by the First World War. It hosts the Bob Abley Art Gallery. Abley was a well-known historian of Spennymoor, whose Spennymoor Remembered series of books capture the history of Spennymoor with thorough research and a treasure trove of old photographs of the town as it once was. The John Kitson Arch – named in honour of a former Mayor – depicts several Cornish paintings. The Durham Mining Museum, whose website is an essential source of information on the history of the local collieries is also based here and well worth a visit. A number of years ago, the town hall exhibited some of Cornish’s work and loaned the artist’s studio from Beamish museum.  

The “Spennymoor People” information board is at the entrance to Festival Walk shopping precinct. When I visited, the precinct was in a state of reconstruction; or more aptly, deconstruction, giving that half of it is now gone, with views straight through to where the old Kingfisher pub stood (now being replaced by an Aldi supermarket). The information board here celebrates Cornish’s depictions of the everyday lives of Spennymoor’s inhabitants, which Cornish captures with realism and empathy.

The “Bar scenes” information board on Cheapside celebrates Cornish’s depictions of miners socialising in the pubs of Spennymoor. This is where some of the miners would come following a long hard day down the pit. In contrast with the darkness of the coal face, the atmosphere depicted here is bright and vibrant, with miners deep in conversation, or engrossed in a game of dominoes, with a glowing nectar coloured beer in hand, or close by. These scenes are often cheerful; good friends sharing a joke, relishing in one another’s company. Their close proximity to one another depicting the strong bonds that come with living in a tightly knit community.

The route I describe below takes a detour here for the Spennymoor Settlement building. The “Settlements” emerged at the turn of the 20^th Century, strongly influenced by pioneering institutions such as Toynbee Hall, with the intention of providing educational, artistic and cultural outlets to left-behind communities. The period of rapid industrialisation, which in the North East was primarily based around the mining industry, was on the one hand a source of employment and prosperity, but on the other, created a deeply unequal society in which workers often lived in cramped and squalid conditions overcast by the pollution of industry, with the richer elements of society breathing the cleaner air of the countryside. As such, the lives of the wealthy and the poor were far removed, with those well off knowing little about the lives of the working class. Several well-meaning people, seeking to improve the conditions of those in deprived communities, deemed it necessary to bridge this gap by encouraging those in more fortunate circumstances to live amongst poverty stricken communities and to work in institutions like the Settlements and Mechanics Institutes to offer educational and artistic opportunities to their inhabitants. There were several motivations at play here. On the one hand, some employers saw these institutions as a way of deterring their workers away from more harmful pastimes such as drinking and gambling. But for others, they were also a means of providing people, many of whom with minimal formal education, with the opportunity to learn skills that will enable them to flourish and express themselves.

The Spennymoor Settlement was opened in 1931. Its founding warden was Bill Farrell, who decided that in order to understand the needs of the people of Spennymoor, he needed to live there. This was a time of deep unemployment in the area. Farrell recognised the deep psychological impact of unemployment. People who had once earned a steady living now reduced to hovering around the streets, gradually descending into a state of despair. The Spennymoor Settlement provided learning and an opportunity for the workers and unemployed to express themselves artistically, hosting among other things a theatre group, a literary group and a sketching club. A young Norman Cornish did, notably, participate in one theatrical production put on by the Settlement, in the 1942 production of Distant Point, but the sketching club was well and truly his calling. And it was here that Cornish, along with several other prominent artists such as Robert Heslop and Bert Dees, honed their craft. The story of the Spennymoor Settlement is fascinating and I will say more about it in forthcoming posts. The original Settlement building was on King Street. The one visited on the trail is currently used by the group.

The trail proceeds back through Cheapside, on the other side of the road. Shortly before you the next information board, you pass the Grand Electric Hall Wetherspoons pub. This originally opened in 1910 as Gowland’s Arcadia Grand Electric Hall and was rebuilt in 1931 as the Arcadia Cinema. This building’s connection with the silver screen goes beyond Spennymoor. Robert and Edward Gowland opened the Grand Electric Hall back in 1910. They were brothers of a man named Gibson Gowland, who was born in Flora Street in Spennymoor, not far from the Methodist Church on Edward Street. Unless you are an aficionado of Hollywood silent pictures, this name probably won’t be ringing any bells, but this man appeared in a host of Hollywood films, including a starring role in the highly acclaimed 1924 Erich von Stroheim film Greed.

To the side of the Grand Electric Hall is Spennymoor’s war memorial. The information board is within the gap leading to the leisure centre. This one draws attention to Bishop’s Close Street, where Cornish was born. The street as it was then has been demolished, though it is interesting standing here to think about the contrast between its appearance now and how it looked when Cornish was growing up, when industry dominated the landscape.

The next information board is opposite the entrance to the precinct. The subject is Berriman’s chip van, one of the many mainstays of Spennymoor which Cornish painted. The chip van was operated near this information board by the three Berriman brothers who also grew their own potatoes. Though now in the possession of Beamish museum, it did briefly return to Spennymoor, where in 2011 it was set up at Rosa Street school, and the occasion was marked by a visit from Cornish himself. On the subject of chippies, the next information point on our route takes in the former site of Eddy’s fish shop (now demolished) on Craddock street. It may have come as a surprise, perhaps an honour, when Cornish stopped by Stan and Mary Eddy’s shop to ask: “Stan, do you mind if I paint your fish shop?” Berriman’s chip van and Eddy’s fish shop may no longer be in operation, but the chippy is alive and well in Spennymoor. Three of them occupy the main road going through the town if you include the Crown Takeaway. Back on the main road, the final information board commemorates Cornish’s painting of school children being assisted across the zebra crossing by the lolly pop man, with Clem’s chippy (still in operation) on the other side. Though many of Cornish’s scenes capture a “slice of life” (to use the title of Cornish’s autobiography) much altered from the one we now occupy, this scene hasn’t changed all that much.

 

 Route

Word of note* Because the route described does not proceed in the same order as the official trail (though the course of the route is basically the same), the order in which information points are visited differs from the official trail. This route also takes in Cornish’s house on Whitworth Terrace and the Spennymoor Settlement building.

Starting Point

I last completed this walk from my mam’s home in Middlestone Moor and the first point of interest I passed is Cornish’s former home on Whitworth Terrace. If you are travelling from outside the area, this can be reached fairly quickly from the Auckland Way car park, which is why I have chosen this as my starting point. The official starting point is just outside Spennymoor Town Hall. If you are starting from here, there is a car park round the back of the town hall.

The Cornish Trail     

1. Facing the road on the Auckland Way car park, turn right and follow Whitworth Road to the four lane end traffic lights. Take a left turn at the traffic lights onto Whitworth Terrace, keeping to the path on the left hand side of the road. Keep an eye out for the Cornish blue plaque at his former home on 67 Whitworth Terrace. You may also notice another blue plaque with the somewhat tongue in cheek assertion that “nothing interesting happened here.” Keep straight ahead past Ken Warnes food store. You will soon reach St Paul’s church and the first information board on this route.
2. At the end of the church green, turn left. Shortly after, take a right onto Edward Street. The "Edward Street" information board is a little down the road. The official trail map takes a left turn here, followed by a right. I’d suggest going straight ahead to the bottom of the road to take a look at the old Methodist building on the right dating back to 1869. Having done this, follow the road to the information point in front of Rosa Street school at the start of the Auckland Way.
3. Walk in the opposite direction of Rosa Street school to cut in between houses to meet the road at Carr street. Turn left once you meet the road and continue following the road until you spot the sign for Jubilee park. Cross the road and enter the park. You will shortly come to the information point at the miner’s memorial. From here, continue along the path with the tennis courts to your right. Take the path on the right before the bowling green. Shortly after passing the crazy golf course on the right take the next path right to leave the park onto Dundas street. Follow this road, passing the old police station on your right and the Volti pub on your left to meet the main road through Spennymoor.
4. At the main road turn left keeping to the left of the road. You will shortly come to the entrance to Festival Walk with the information board entitled “Spennymoor People.” From here, keep following the road which emerges onto Cheapside where you will find the “Bar Scenes” information point. If you are just interested in following the official trail, you can cross the road here to visit the “Bishops Close Street” information point near the war memorial. My route takes a detour to the Spennymoor Settlement building which I outline next.
5. From the “Bar Scenes” information point, keep following the road through Cheapside to the junction. Turn left at the junction and when convenient cross to the other side of the road, continuing in the same direction. Keep ahead until you see a white sign directing you to the Spennymoor Settlement building. The building is at the end of this back road and has a blue plaque on the outside. When finished, retrace your steps back to Cheapside, where you need to be on the other side of the road from the one which you originally walked down. Follow the road past the library and the Grand Electric Hall and follow it round to the left by the war memorial to the “Bishops Close Street” information point. 
6. Continue to follow the road towards the town hall. You will shortly pass by the “Berriman’s Chip Van” information point on your left. Continue to follow the main road past the town hall all the way up to the roundabout. Veer left at the round about, but shortly afterward you need to cross the road near to the large building in front of you, which used to be the North Eastern Pub. The old railway bridge used to stand to the right of where you are now (there is a blue plaque commemorating this to the side of the Station Guest House should you want to visit). Keep right past the former North Eastern Pub and take the next left before The Railway pub onto Clarence street. A short walk along the road will lead you to the “Eddy’s Fish Shop” information board.
7. Retrace your steps back along to the main road, which you should follow past the Railway pub and shortly after the two fish and chip shops you will arrive at the zebra crossing where you can find the information board on the other side of the road. From here, continue to follow the main road up the bank which will lead you back to Whitworth Terrace where you can retrace your steps back to the Auckland Way car park.

Sources used:

The Norman Cornish website has a map showing the official route of the trail. It also contains information on the places visited on the trail: https://normancornish.com/trail

Norman Cornish Behind the Scenes Sketchbooks. Norman Cornish Ltd. This is a fascinating collection of Cornish's sketches showing the evolution of his paintings from sketches with his trademark flo master pen to the paintings that have become time capsules of Spennymoor's history. 

Chris Lloyd, “Rising from the Ashes,” The Northern Echo. https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/11147041.rising-ashes/. This article contains some information on the history of Ken Warne’s.

British Listed Building entry on 61 and 62 Clyde Terrace, notes the attendance of Lloyd George for tea during his visit to the town: https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101310887-61-and-62-clyde-terrace-spennymoor#.YctMa2jP02w.

St Paul’s Church Spennymoor website information on the church’s history: http://www.stpaulsspennymoor.co.uk/site/index.php?page=content&content=4876

Tudhoe and Spennymoor Local History Society contains some really useful information on the town’s history: https://www.durhamweb.org.uk/tslhs/tslhshistory.html

Some information on the history of the Arcadia Cinema, which is now the Grand Electric Hall Wetherspoons: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4166

Bob Abley, Spennymoor Remembered, Vols.2&3. ARB Publications. 

Robert McManners and Gillian Wales: Way to the Better: The Spennymoor Settlement. Gemini Productions. This is a well researched book on The Spennymoor Settlement where Cornish attended and honed his craft as a fledgling artist. It also follows the trails and tribulations of the Settlement's founding warden Bill Farrell including his valiant attempts to keep the settlement running when funding dried up.