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It is recorded as Toll Cottage in the 1939 census and called toll cottage in the newspaper cutting.

Make a cuppa, this is long but I hope you find it as interesting as I did. If I had paid the ½d toll everytime I’ve gone through Bebside Woods the past couple of days, I’d now be 2/- out of pocket! However, I’d have considered it money well spent as I’ve managed not only to make aquaintance with the occupants of the ’Hapenny Woods’ and witness its change from agricultural to industrial but also to plot the development of Bebside from it becoming a civil parish in its own right,1866, to its abolishment and incorporaton in Blyth 1920 – long overdue in my research but I won't bore you with that bit. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find Toll Cottage recorded by this name in any public record. Neither have I been able to find any occupation recorded which relates to the collection of toll money. Presumably, like so many other addresses at that time, it was a familiar name given by the locals to aid identification. Census records from 1841 to 1911show only 4 dwellings in the woods between Bedlington bridge and Rose Cottage. In earlier years they are simply referred to as ” cottages in the woods” but since 1861 they are named. The names of these dwellings have, however, changed a few times. The properties are never the less identifiable because of similarities in their names, their location on the route of the enumerator, their occupants, who don’t appear to have moved much and, in later census records, by the number of rooms in each dwelling. Starting at the Bedlington end and working along the river Blyth towards Bebside we find: Bridge End Cottage (4 rooms), formerly called Bedlington Bridge and occupied 1871-1911 by Thomas Weighell, occupation winding engineman. Mill House (more than 5 rooms), even called Bebside Mill and occupied 1861 by horse dealer Samuel Gardner. The property was clearly well suited to horse dealng as it is occupied 1871 and 1881 by another horse dealer, John Henderson. In 1891 Mill House does not appear by name and instead is named as a second Bebside Mill Cottage. The occupant then is Joseph Thompson (former occupant of the smaller, two-room Bebside Mill Cottage) his wife, 5 children, mother-in-law and horse dealer John Henderson, the former Mill House occupant, who is now a lodger. Joseph Thompson remains in residence 1901 and 1911. Bebside Mill Cottage (2 rooms), also called Bebside Cottage, is unoccupied in 1861 but in 1871 the occupier is agricultural labourer, David Rutherford but 1881 sees coal miner Joseph Thompson in residence. Ten years later, 1891, he has moved into the next-door,larger, four-room Mill House together with his family and the 2 room Bebside Mill Cottage is occupied by steam-ploughman, George Summers, his wife and 3 children. 1901 Bebside Mill Cottage is recorded as unoccupied but the enumerator makes a marginal note that one person, a man, ”slept in house on night of 31 March but is entered on 200 schedule 3 Brick Row where he stays during day”. Thrown out by the wife perhaps or indulging in a bit of hankey-pankey? I’m sure there’s a story there somewhere and all the more interesting because he is a relative of mine! By 1911 the cottage is again occupied and coal miner Herbert Wilkie, son-in-law of neighbour Joseph Thompson, has moved in. Wood Cottage (2 rooms), in 1861 called ’Woodmans Cottage', lies on the parish boundary and as such is the last dwelling before Rose Cottage, Bebside Furnace. The name has changed many times: Bebside Woods Cottage (1871), Bedlington Cottage (1881) and Bedlington Woods Cottage in 1891 before becoming Wood Cottage in 1901. For more than 30 years, from 1861 to and including 1891, Wood Cottage was the home of Mathew Cairns and his family. He was a woodsman by occupation until 1881, possibly looking after the Halfpenny Woods. In 1891, aged 54 years, Mathew was still in residence but now living alone and his occupation is given as ’gardener’. In 1901, even Wood Cottage is occupied by a miner Thomas Aisbitt but in 1911 it has been taken over by his son, Richard, former ”pit heap lad” now market gardener. Wood Cottage is, I believe, the so-called ’Toll House’. It seems appropriate, because of its location at the boundary and that Mathew, being a woodsman, should have included in his duties the collection of toll money for the landowner – perhaps his employer. Why his occupation changes to gardener may be due to a change of land ownership or he may be working at Bebside gardens by the old Iron Works or at Cowpen gardens at the top of the hill. It could be interesting to know when the toll was abolished. But, is Wood Cottage the building in the previous photos?