Ashington and Sheepwash, Northumberland

Description
Ashington and Sheepwash, a township and an ecclesiastical parish in Bothal parish, Northumberland, on the river Wansbeck, 4 miles E of Morpeth. It has a station on the Blythe and Tyne section of the N.E.R.; a post, money order, and telegraph office under Morpeth, and two banks. Acreage, 666; population of the township, 141; of the ecclesiastical parish, 5331. The church, built in 1887, is in the Early English and Norman styles. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Newcastle; value, £255, in the gift of the Bishop of Newcastle. There is a school here. In 1893 the first stone was laid of a new village, near the railway station, which it is intended to create primarily for the workmen and their families, many hundreds in number, who are unable to find house room in the colliery village of Ashington.The site is 130 feet above the sea level, and overlies a bed of freestone. Sites for streets of cottages, terraces, and business premises have been laid out, and a system of sewerage and water supply has been designed.