Radcliffe

Radcliffe was originally a mining community, once home to over 700 people. A colliery operated there until 1892, when a fault in the seam, then fire and flooding, made coal extraction uneconomical. New pit shafts were sunk nearby at Newburgh and later at Hauxley, but flooding remained a problem. Through much of the 19th and early to mid-20th century, the settlement was called "Radcliffe Terrace, Hauxley", giving the erroneous impression that it was part of Hauxley (or another local town); despite this, it was an independent (and somewhat isolated) settlement. The first word can be found spelled with many variations, even relatively recently: Ratliff, Radcliffe, Ratcliffe, Ratcliff, and…