Clara Vale

My family lived in Stanner House, a lovely old house in Clara Vale from 1958 until 1964 - my parents moved there shortly after they got married in 1951. I was born in 1958 and can remember the house as if it was yesterday. In the 1800's it had been a farmhouse with fields surrounding it and there were no other houses for miles around. At some point the farm house was split into two houses and we lived in the bigger of the two. When the pit came along in about 1900 houses/shops/school were built for the pitmen families. My memory is of the bigger shop opposite the Methodist Church and a tiny little one which once stood where the detached bungalow is (built about 20 years ago?) I cannot remember the name of the man who owned it but can remember going there, it seemed to sell everything that a villager could possible want. My mother kept hens, which were free to roam through the day but were safely locked up at night. The fox often caught them through the day. They were never killed to be eaten, just for the eggs. There was a little barn in our garden where a path ran along the top and my sister and I used to push our little brother in there and poke through the soil into the top of the barn roof and throw soil down onto him. After the first time, he would always put his potty on his head when we sent him into the barn. Ha ha.
It really was a lovely place to live. I remember a great aunt once taking my sister and I to the Town Moor for the hoppings and we were terrified by the noisy traffic on the Great North Road - we just weren't used to noises like that! The school was just one room where children of all ages were taught lessons. When the pit closed around 1963/64 people moved away from the village and on the final day when the school closed (because of a lack of pupils) a photographer came from the Evening Chronical came to take the class photograph - there were only about 10 of us left. I still have a copy of that photograph today. If only Stanner House was still standing . . . Does anyone out there remember Stanner House or have any photographs? I would love to hear from you.