Simpson's cottage and market garden

Roughly where No. 22 Burdon Park is now, there was a stone cottage dating from at least 1805. Two yew trees and some fruit trees grew close by. The Tempest family lived here in the 1840s. John Tempest had been a keelman, later a colliery labourer at Marley Hill. He died in 1865 aged 84. His son Thomas was a wagon rider on the railway. Around 1880 William Simpson, a coal miner, moved here from Medomsley. His son Thomas was also a miner. William died in 1890. Thomas died young and his wife Elizabeth was left to raise 8 children. She ran a market garden on a 3 acre plaot where Burdon Park (built in 1988) now stands. In 1925 Elizabeth Simpson retired to Elm Street. Her son Thomas kept the garden as a sideline to his mining job. Her other son Harry was also a miner, until 1930 when he set up an allotment business at Sandygate (became Simpson's Nurseries). The cottage was empty in 1936. During the Second World War the nursery site was taken over by Mr Jobling of East Sunniside Farm for food production. Later the Douglas Brothers grew vegetables on it.