and nineteenth centuries was notoriously difficult and often resulted in disasters causing numerous fatalities. Sheriff Hill Colliery suffered a number of such incidents, notably on 27 December 1793 when fourteen workers lost their lives in an explosion. On 19 July 1819, when a further explosion caused the deaths of thirty-five men. The Colliery closed in 1926 and never re-opened. Far less is known about Hope Pit, another mine which operated in Gateshead Fell (more specifically) and which is evidenced in Ordnance Survey maps up to 1919, but no such listing is evidenced in the map of 1939. This was situated in the area now known as Blue Quarries Road and Hewson Street, both of which are now residential areas, and very little documentary evidence regarding this pit survives today. Social conditions Criminality The Fell, and particularly the turnpike road, had, in spite of its natural beauty, earned itself a reputation as something of a haven for neer-do-wells and a place of considerable danger for those unaccustomed to it. In 1880, the Monthly Chronicle reflected that: “Gateshead Fell, as the name implies, was once a wild common, over a portion of which lay the road between Durham and Newcastle. The loneliness of the bleak moorland was quite guile enough to invest it with terror to travellers a hundred years ago and occasionally there were incidents that served greatly to enhance the evil repute of the locality ” In 1770, Robert Hazlett, a highwayman, was convicted of committing two acts of highway robbery in the same night. In the first instance, he attempted to steal a watch and coins from a lady named Miss Benson. After succeeding in obtaining from the woman her coin purse, Hazlett continued along the turnpike and encountered a postman, who, despite having been forewarned by Miss Benson, was 'lured into a trap' and robbed. Hazlett was tried within one week of his arrest at the Newcastle Assizes and was convicted. He was sentenced to hang until dead. His remains were hung on chains near a pond on the Fell as a warning to other potential, would-be criminals. That pond, named Hazlett’s Pond in dubious honour of the highwayman, has since been drained and enclosed. The Fell was also reportedly the home of minor criminal gangs. Local press reports referred often to the actions of a notorious family in the name of Clark and the actions and impact