Explore Eighton Banks #6 - View of Shaden's Hill Traditional Cache

This is part six of an eight cache trail around the area of Eighton Banks, with lovely views down to the coast and across the Team Valley towards the Angel of the North. The route will take you approximately an hour and a half, or longer if you avail yourself of the three pubs enroute. Cache is a magnetic keysafe just past the third pub along the route. 

From here you can see Shadens Hill, or Sheddon's Hill, the host to the Great Miner's Strike of 1844. It was the first meeting of Durham and Northumberland coal miners in response to the mine owners refusing to give them better working conditions. 35-40,000 miners and their families attended the strike, and the Hill was a mass of protesting bodies. As a consequence of this strike, other miners began to strike until the protest was nationwide.

As a response to it, the pitmen and their families were evicted from their houses and foreigners were brought in to man the mines. This led to a second meeting of 25,000 people and the miners stood together despite the oppression. After twenty weeks of striking, there was a meeting on Newcastle Town Moor and the Union crumbled. Miners returned to their awful working conditions and coal owners continued to reap millions in profits from the mines. If you look to the right, on a clear day you can see all the way down to the Angel of the North.  

Please don't use this as a park and grab as it is on the main road, parking is available in front of the houses on either side of the hill.