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County Durham
PREHISTORIC SOCIETY IN SUNDERLAND
The modern city of Sunderland contains two important Neolithic and Bronze Age sites, both
scheduled monuments: Hastings Hill and Copt Hill. Both lie south-west of the city centre, one near
Herrington, the other just outside the study area at Houghton-le-Spring (fig. 5). Although difficult to
interpret because produced by societies which did not read and write, these prominently sited
monuments may be read as territorial makers. As such they demonstrate that prehistoric societies
might be accurately aware of the landscapes which they inhabited and that they might be elaborately
organized into discrete territories.
Hastings Hill contains a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age features, of which perhaps the most
important are an interrupted ditch, or causewayed enclosure and cursus, identified by aerial
photography and believed to be of Neolithic date. The causewayed enclosure, an irregular oval, 92
metres by 65 metres, has entrances on the north-west and south-east sides. The cursus, a feature in
which a pair of ditches form the longer sides of a rectangular enclosure, is orientated north-south; it is
47 metres wide at its northern terminus and runs for at least 400 metres. The function of such
monuments is extremely difficult to define. Enclosures constructed on hill tops or perhaps alongside
single farmsteads have been interpreted as settlements, cattle enclosures, ritual centres and meeting
places. Linear features like the cursus can often run for many miles and have generally been
interpreted as ceremonial pathways linking important monuments.
Next to the cursus, a number of circular features, visible as cropmarks, are thought to be associated
ring ditches or barrows. One small barrow of earth and stone construction at the summit of Hastings
Hill, excavated in 1911, contained 10 inhumations and cremation burials dating from both the
Neolithic and Bronze Age period and sherds of two Neolithic pots. The main inhumation lay crouched
within a cist (a burial-chamber formed from stone slabs) which had been cut into the natural
limestone. The grave also contained a beaker, a flint knife, a bone pin, a number of bird and animal
bones, shells, and the tip of an antler, probably a fragment from a pick as such tools were used in the
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construction of barrows. Other cists contained the skeletons of an elderly man, buried with a decorated
food vessel, a woman, aged about sixty and the remains of a child, discovered on the north-eastern
edge of the mound, together with a decorated food vessel, a splinter of flint and an ox tooth. A number
of cremation burials, some lying in cists and others in cinerary urns, were also discovered in the
mound.
Although few of the features at Hastings Hill survive above ground today, the causewayed enclosure
and rectilinear cursus would have been imposing monuments highly visible in the surrounding
landscape and, if directly associated with the barrow to the north, could have defined Hastings Hill as
an extremely important feature within the territory of prehistoric Sunderland.
Copt Hill includes the round barrow known as Seven Sisters which was excavated in 1877. The
barrow is of earth and stone construction, as at Hastings Hill, and survives today circled by a ring of
six mature beech trees. It contained a Neolithic cremation burial and the remains of other such burials
and inhumations, almost all likely to date from the Bronze Age. A number of bodies were discovered.
They included a child lying in a stone cist; two males, one lying with a flint scraper; a man, crouched,
his head positioned towards the west-south west; and another with a food vessel. Recent excavations
around the barrow have revealed that certain features, previously identified by geophysical survey as
possible ring ditches and the terminus of a cursus monument, are actually natural features of the
limestone bedrock.
The area had a long history of human activity. Material taken from one of a number of pits, or
postholes, found in the area leading up to the barrow has been radio carbon dated to the Mesolithic
period, and is therefore of an earlier date than the barrow. Other finds from this period have also been
made, including Mesolithic flints recovered from slopes below the hill in 2004. Most interestingly a
later burial, possibly Christian and dating from the Anglo Saxon period, suggests that these prehistoric
landscape features continued to possess ritual and territorial significance.
Sources:
TWHER, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 232, 233, 325, 451, 452, 467, 480 (Hastings Hill); 100, 114, 424, 426, 437,
439 (Copt Hill); Trenchmann, ‘Recent finds at Hastings Hill’, Antiq. Sund. 14 (1913), 2; idem, ‘Hastings Hill’,
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Proc. Soc. Antiq. Newcastle upon Tyne 3rd ser., 5 (1913 for 1911-12), 139-40; idem, ‘Prehistoric Burials in Co.
Durham’, Archaeol. Ael. 3rd ser., 11 (1914), 123-30, 135-56; Manby, ‘Neolithic Pottery from Hastings Hill’,
Archaeol. Ael. 5th ser., 1 (1973), 219-222; Gibson, Bronze Age pottery in NE England, (1978), 66, 121; Miket,
Prehistory of Tyne and Wear, 53, 55, 68-70, 72, 74-6; Young, ‘Copt Hill round cairn’, Archaeol. Ael. 5th ser.,
13 (1985), 7-17; VCH Durham, I, 363.
Matthew Bristow and Christine Newman
Captions:
A: Stone burial cist containing skeleton with beaker and other grave goods, found in a barrow at the
top of Hastings Hill.
B: Aerial view of Hastings Hill, from the north, showing crop marks identifying a Neolithic
causewayed enclosure and cursus monument.
C: The round barrow at Copt Hill, crowned by beech trees and known locally as the Seven Sisters.
These lists of 18th-century Sunderland Freemasons were transcribed by a volunteer, John Bilton. The
originals are held in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London: http://www.ugle.org.uk/
Phoenix Lodge:
Previously called King George’s Lodge, constituted 1755.
T.O Todd, The History of the Phoenix Lodge No. 94, Sunderland, of Free and Accepted Masons ...
from the Consecration, 1755, to the 150th Anniversary, 1905 (1906)
PHOENIX L0DGE PAGE 1
Name
Age
Occupation
Residence
When Made Masons
Lodge
membership
Date
Mattw Carr
Esq Justice of Qu[??] &
Feb 21st 1763
coal fitter
Abraham Headley
Draper of Merit
Oct 6th 1762
John Haw
Insurer
March 6th 1765
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Joseph Lee
Upholsterer
December 11th 1765
Robert Inman
Gentleman
Feb 21st 1763
George Trotter
Surgeon
October 30th 1761
John Hornhill
Coal Fitter
March 1756
George Thompson
Surveyor of Customs
October 1756
Isaac Brown
Physician
Joseph Atkinson
Roper
February 9th 1756
Adam Turner
Innkeeper
February 9th 1756
John Apostle
Innkeeper
December 24th 1757
Joseph Martin
China & Glass Seller
December 24th 1757
Thomas Brunton
Fitter
June 1st 1763
George Ogilvie
Schoolmaster
John Bushby
Curate & Schoolmaster
December 5th 1764
Robert Turner
Cab Maker
October 1755
Robert Cooley
Ship Owner
March 1757
John Taylor
Painter
January 4th 1764
Thomas Heath
Butcher
December 27th 1764
Cuthbert Johnson
Surgeon
February 21st 1763
John Havisides
Shipmaster
March 1763
Mich Harrison
Salesman
March 1763
Arthur Todd
Shipbuilder
December 5th 1764
George Allinson
Latea Coal Fitter
March 6th 1760
Henry Peach
Master Mariner
April 4th 1765
William Wharram
Master Mariner
April 4th 1765
Thomas Bates
Master of Company
1759
1769
1759
1759
Comedian
Thomas Baker
Agent of a Coliery
May 6th 1765
John Atkinson
Wharfinger
July 3rd 1760
Will Allinson
Master Mariner
September 4th 1765
Thomas Burwill
Upholsterer
September 4th 1765
John Smeathham
Master Mariner
Ralph Allinson
Viewer to a Coliery
February 26th 1764
John Thornber
Ship Owner
December 27th 1764
John Taylor
Ship Master
October 2nd 1765
Thomas Stafford
Ship Master
1764
December
1765
James Collins
John Bilton
December 11th 1765
Ship Builder
Page 4
John Turner
Ship Master
December 11th 1765
Chris Maynard
Ship Master
December 11th 1765
Thomas Hunter
Ship Master
January 1st 1766
George Robson
Land Steward to Ralph
January 21st 1766
Milbank
Pat Sanderson
Bookseller
January 21st 1766
J Robinson
?
June 4th 1766
John Taylor
Brewer
September 4th 1766
Jacob Hardman
Shipmaster
October 1st 1766
James Stones
Shipmaster
October 1st 1766
Robert Wilson
Corn Brewer
April 2nd 1766
Matt Wilkinson
Gentleman
February 4th 1767
Thomas Wallel
Coal Jactor
February 4th 1767
John Twiddell
Hardwareman
Cath Ranson
Taylor
February 14th 1767
Christopher Halton
Mariner
June 3rd 1767
Joseph Jewson
Mariner
March 30th 1762
William Gooch
Completer of Customs
Tipping Brown
Completor of Customs
1763
May 18th 1776
Bony Billy
May 6th 1776
John Graham
September 17th 1779
Thomas Sanderson
January 20th 1780
Thomas Douglas
26
Carrier
Sunderland
8TH November 1784
William Armstrong
36
Shoemaker
Sunderland
3rd February 1785
Christ John Cay
26
Draper
16th March 1785
Richard Markham
27
Draper
16th March 1785
Anthony Smith
25
Draper
16th March 1785
1762
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John Bilton
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John Bilton
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