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Well John I am most certainly not hiding behind anything I use a forum handle or as you say nom de plume just as the majority of the posters on this forum do, does that make them spineless also? Its a shame you also resort to sarcasm when things dont go your way, I always thought you were a better man than that. What ever does my name or handle or the compass point of my home have to do with resiting trotters monument John ? seems I have trod on the toes of one of the six disciples.

First, let's just bring some clarity into the names. There has never been a First-, Second- or a Third Row. While they were built as rows of terraced houses they all had the name Street. The houses in Netherton Colliery, prior to these being built shortly after 1905, were named Row, Howard-, Yard- and Clifton Row as well as the even earlier wooden dwellings in New Row (later renamed South Row.) Second, Evans is wrong when he states that 152 houses were created during the 1905 build. The building of 152 houses was approved in 1905 but all were not built. I believe there were 113-115 houses completed. Third Street had 25, Plessey- (as it later became known) had 27-28, Second- had 29-30 and First Street had, I believe, 32. These houses were built when the Howard Pit was brought back to life after 21 years of standing idle. The wooden dwellings of South Row were, by then, fit only for demolition but some of the later built stone dwellings in Howard-, Yard- and Clifton Row were able to be repaired. The next phase in development was the colliery housing as I remember it, the brick built First-, Second-, Plessey- (as it came to be called) and Third Street. The streets were quite simply named as they were built. First Street being the first of the four rows of houses. What had been South Row, became the 'street' by which the residents reached their front door. It later became a row of gardens but the pavement remained as long as the houses. Originally, as can be seen on the maps above, Second Street consisted of two rows of houses witha common access to their front doors via the 'street' that went between them. Their front doors faced each other and again the pavements remained. Third Street had it's front entrance to the west and that 'street', with pavement, later became a lawned area joining onto the gardens (a later addition). The street names, rather than being the name of the actual row of buildings, were in fact the names of the streets that ran outside the front door of the houses - exactly as they are printed on the map. Two rows of houses shared one back lane which the back door opened onto (albeit inside a yard): First Street and Second Street shared one while Third Street and the other half of Second Street shared the other. These can be quite clearly seen on the map. Where The name Plessey Street came from, I've no idea. I assume it's something to do with the Plessey family and it's dotted about all over the east Northumberland area. I can say, however, that one of the main Northumberland Coalfield seams, The Plessey, was worked at Netherton. When the name came, I can't say with certainty, only that it's always been Plessey Street throughout my lifetime (born 1947). I heard many years ago that the change of name was related to postal difficulties but I've never been able to find any evidence of this. Regarding Old Row, it didn't belong to the Colliery as I knew it. It was situated more towards Nedderton village, simply called 'Netherton' on this map from 1860.

I don't think your opinion has in any way been frowned upon, moe. Malcolm took the time to explain the reasoning behind the proposal, after all, which I would say shows respect for your opinion.