Simon English
England Revisited

On a street lamp + electricity pole next to where South Moor Arch used to be, in South Stanley.

On the same cast iron electricity pole in south Stanley as 1971. It has had maybe one lick of paint since and rust shows through in places as it did then. The complicated electricity distribution from this pole has been tidied up especially as the five wire system down the road has been reduced to one. As this pole is also a street light support a new modern lamp has replaced the old one. All down the road new lights have been attached to the top of each old pole.

The conservatory on the house behind the wall still appears in good condition. The holly bushes have grown to 20 feet but have been kept trimmed at the base.

On the other side of the road the newsagent shop is now doing a good friendly trade as The Pie Shop. Houses now have satellite dishes not just TV aerials.

Standing on the southern horizon, in the fields on the edge of the outlying village, are two huge silver wind turbines. These are a real modern feature and a break with the past.

The Southmoor Arch that, at point 6, had been demolished by 1971 was part of colliery rail network round Stanley. Some of the brickwork of this raised railway still stands 20 yards to the west along Geoffrey Terrace. The route of the railway is preserved as open space, grass and trees, as an amenity of the local terrace houses.

At the bottom of the hill, down Park Road, is the memorial park to the local men and miners of South Moor Colliery who died in the First World War. Some 200 names. Through this runs a stream that used to be badly polluted with manganese and iron salts by water running out of the closed coal mines now that pumping and treating had ceased. With no one taking responsibility local inhabitants had to suffer the indignity of this unsightly mess.

Seventeen years ago I applied to work on the Quaking Houses project in which local people working with scientists and artists could find and build low tech solutions to clean the water with ponds and wetlands.

Now looking at the water clarity and exploring the mine outflow tunnels it seems that either time or science and art, or a combination of the two, have ameliorated the problem.

The park is well kept by the council with big mature trees presumably from the design, landscaping and planting of eighty so years ago but low grade vandalism is evident on the various artist initiative decorative metalwork recently installed. The closure of the coal mines and the loss of the associated engineering industry had a huge affect here. I gather that 3rd generation unemployment is not unknown.
Points 6 & 9