Cambois

Cambois was a township in Bedlingtonshire which, until 1844, was part of County Durham. It was a coal mining village from 1862 to week ending 20 April 1968 when Cambois Colliery closed. Cambois is now closely related to the area known as North Blyth. The main commercial activity was the importation of alumina for the manufacture of aluminium at Lynemouth, but that smelter has now closed. Alumina is still imported and moved by rail to a smelter powered by the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme, near Fort William on the west coast of Scotland. In 1883, the Coal Company gave a list of the property it owned, or leased: {| class="wikitable" |- | North Blyth Staithes || 7 houses |- | Mr Moore,…

Before the closure of the colliery, the social centre of the village was the Miners Welfare Institute in Ridley Terrace. The present building, the fourth, dates from 1929, and was built following the destruction of an earlier institute in a fire. It had "a large billiards room, a library and news room, committee room, a 200 seater meeting room....There was a smoke room and lecture hall also, and films were also shown here." In 2023, the building, which had been unused for more than a decade, was reopened as an arts centre and community hub, The Tute, by the choreographer Esther Huss and her partner, the writer Alex Oates. The Guardian reported, "As well as Huss making her own work here, she…