The long and surprising history of Tunstall, a village that has stood through the ages

The area known as Tunstall is located to the Southeast side of the city of Sunderland. Bordering on Ryhope and Silksworth, it is situated in a series of limestone hills which were formed in the Cambrian era, once constituting a former barrier reef. Within this broad area, there is Old Tunstall, which constitutes the remnants of a former village derived from the Middle Ages, and new Tunstall, a housing area across the hillside which sits immediately to the city centre.

In the era of Pre-Roman Britain, there has been evidence found that Bronze age peoples lives in the area of Tunstall Hills. This has included artefacts, pots, burial cairns and even human teeth. But it would be in the Middle Ages that the village of Tunstall emerged, its name in Old English seemingly bearing reference to a town in the hills, or a series of stables.

The early village was a township of the parish of Bishopwearmouth, which was centred on Low Row around St. Michael’s Church. The first formal record of Tunstall emerges in the 12th Norman “Boldon Buke” which was a comprehensive survey of the lands held by the Bishop of Durham which were separate to the earlier Domesday Book.

Here, the early village had a population of just 13 tenants who presumably worked on the farm. The settlement consisted of a “14 dwellings”, a windmill and a shared oven. This was the typical layout of the medieval village which was replicated throughout what would form Sunderland, including in Southwick, Fulwell, Ryhope, Herrington and Silksworth amongst other places.

The medieval village of Tunstall grew around a common space known as “The Village Green”, again the norm for similar settlements. Like in Southwick and Ryhope, the shape and integrity of the green has survived over time and is visible on maps as the two circular shaped roads known as “Tunstall Village Green Road” and “Paddock Lane”, the latter being a medieval name. The common space would have been in the middle.

By the 1600s, Old Tunstall consisted of 10 cottages, a windmill, a common well, farm buildings and a lime kiln. There are also used to be ponds on the village green, similar to that of old Washington, but these now no longer exist with modern development.

The settlement of Tunstall would continue as an isolated agricultural village until the 19th century, whereby industrialisation seen a profound transformation in its surrounding landscape. Just opposite the site of the village, the mine known as Ryhope Colliery was created in 1856. Then, to the west, in 1869, came another mine in the form of Silksworth Colliery.

The rapid expansion of coal mining seen the original village swallowed up by what became “New Silksworth” which ended its original country isolation and with that, a railway was then carved out of the adjacent hills to connect the two collieries accordingly. This forms the route of the long public footpath between Hollycarrside and the Silksworth Ski Slope.

To the North, the area which became Tunstall Road and vale materialised as the town expanded southwards in the latter half of the 19th century, spilling out from Ashbrooke, where the modern housing area was built in the 20th century. The hills area was subsequently designated a nature reserve.