Sutton (St Helens)

Sutton is a district of St Helens, originally in the county of Lancashire but now in Merseyside, England. Derived from Sud Tun, the Old English for South Town, Sutton is located in the south of St Helens and dates back hundreds of years. It was originally a Saxon village and its rich seams of coal transformed it from an area of moorland and forest into a thriving community. Mining proved an important part of life in Sutton from the sixteenth century right up until 1991 when the Sutton Manor Colliery closed down. Sutton Manor was one of the largest pits in the Lancashire coal field, the deepest of the two shafts going over 2,000 feet into the earth. Due to their depth, they were not filled in, instead two three metre thick re-inforced concrete plugs were lifted into position over the two shafts, with venting pipes for Methane. This has meant that annual surveys are carried out on the shafts, however recent surveys have seen that the shafts have little water in them.

Its history has been largely industrial with occupations such as glass blowing, clay digging, nail making, linen weaving and brewing.

The Sutton Brook navigation reached north Sutton in St Helens in the 1770s bringing with it improved communications and the transportation of fuel. Industries such as the British Plate Glass Company, Sidac and the Sutton Alkali Works sprang up making it a thriving community. The closure of the mines (at Sherdley, Lea Green, Clock Face and Sutton Manor) as well as many of the other traditional industries, drastically changed the landscape and economy of the area.

In their places wildlife parks and areas of outstanding beauty have flourished in what is a heavily residential district of St Helens.

These include the Sutton Mill Dam (which was opened as a wildlife nature park by Prince Charles in 1988) and the Sutton Manor Woodlands.

In sport, it has two basketball teams, The Sutton Rockets and The Sutton Hoops with the Rockets being the more successful of the two

External links

* [http://www.suttonbeauty.org.uk/ Sutton Beauty] – A Photographic Appreciation of Sutton in St Helens
* [http://www.hfinster.de/StahlArt2/archive-collieries-england-BW-4270-17-23.03.1990-en.html Sutton Manor colliery 1990] - photographs of the beautiful colliery