The "folly" took place, in modern terms, in an area from the corner of Plessey Road/Union Street to the corner of Plessey Road and Beaconsfield Street.
The Crofton Mill Pit was adjacent.
On the Greenwoods's map of 1828 ( in the "Plans" section of the Blyth part of Northumberland Co0mmunities site) a wide stream, called The Gut, flows through Blyth, where Union St lies now.
The stream was wide and muddy and impassable other than by a bridge ( sited where today there is a pedestrian crossing into Bus Station) Blyth's Bridge St got it's name from this bridge over the Gut. ( Paintings of Bridge hanging in Blyth Library-- was there up to a yr ago)
Blyth man decides to make his millions by becoming a salt baron,
So he installs salt pans adjacent to the Gut ( at Plessey Road end) to boil the sea water that comes into the Gut at high tides.
Unfortunately the width of the Gut allowed the water to dissipate before he get get salt from it. Plans bite the dust. Area becomes know as Folly ( or The Folly).
What is Park Road today was once called Folly Rd ( one end of which started at the Folly)
Notice on the maps within the Blyth section of Northumberland Communities site, a dotted line.... This line indicates the historic boundary between the parishes of Horton ( to west and east) and Earsdon ( to east and south) also between the Townships of Cowpen and Newsham ( Blyth at that time was too new to have any ancient "sway"
Crofton or Crofton village lay very close to the Folly, still on the track that is today Plessey Rd ( once a wooden waggonway where horses pulled coal from Plessey and Hartford pits to Blyth Harbour). It was was sometimes called South Crofton... to distinguish it from the "other Crofton" that lay near and north of today's Hodgsons Road.
Kath mentioned Keelmans Row..... name got changed to Turner St, then to Regent St.
( In 1907 the two Urban Districts of Cowpen ( c12000 pop) and Blyth ( 4000 pop) amalgamated under Blyth. Several duplicated street names were changed. e.g. The Blyth Wellington St remained, the Cowpen Wellington St became Burt St, Cowpen St became King St, Cowpen's Market St (remained, Blyth.s Market St became an extention of Plessey Road to the river's edge)
Stop me please !
Michael Dixon
