Whitburn, South Tyneside

Whitburn is a village in South Tyneside, on the coast of North East England. It lies roughly halfway between the City of Sunderland and the town of South Shields in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear. Historically part of County Durham, the village has a population of 5,235.

This Whitburn has a different origin to the one in Lothian: it means "white barn or house" from Old English hwit "white" and bere-ærn "barn". A record of the name as Wituberne in 1182 proves this.

Whitburn is listed in the "Boldon buke" of 1183 as "Whitbern" and was probably a Saxon settlement.

Following the attack of the Spanish Armada on England in 1588, the vanquished Spanish fleet fled up the east coasts of England and Scotland. Two Spanish galleons ran aground on Whitburn Rocks in rough seas and local inhabitants plundered the wreckage. The bell from one of the galleons was placed in Whitburn Church. Spanish oak beams removed from the shipwrecks could still be viewed in the roof of the Whitburn lawnmower shop in the 1950s prior to the building's demolition.

Whitburn remained fairly undisturbed settlement until 1718 when the Land Enclosure Act came into force and a number of farms were created. The settlement was isolated as no roads connected to it, but there was a path on Sea Lane (now East Street) connecting it to Whitburn Bents, a nearby hamlet. Not until 1866 was a road built over the sandunes to Fulwell, in northern Sunderland. In 1874 Marsden Pit was sunk and the community increased dramatically as a result. Whitburn Colliery closed in 1968, and the land is now a coastal park and nature reserve.

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