A note on the name

Last updated: 6 February 2006

Plashetts is an old name in this valley. A plashet is a wet meadow, or a bed of osiers: the sort of ground a burn makes before it finds a proper channel. The colliery took the name, the station took it from the colliery, and the parish has kept it. Visitors who like a derivation will find that one in the gallery, on the first label as you come in.

The industrial hamlet associated with Plashetts Colliery and the former railway grew in the second half of the nineteenth century and was closed and cleared in stages during the last. Kielder Water was completed in the valley in 1981–82 and is now the great water of the district. The village served by this office is Plashetts as it stands: the Heritage Centre, the hall, the church, the green, and the waymarked walks. Brown signs on the valley road, where they remain, refer to this village.

Maps of different dates place the name at slightly different points along the valley, as maps of a working district will.Older sheets are of interest, and several are shown in the centre. The present approach is the one in Getting Here. Enquiries about the reservoir, the ferry and the shore should be directed to the operators of those facilities, who know their own ground.

The old incline is part of the mining story and is described with the colliery. For the years as we record them, see History & Heritage. A few questions we are asked more than once are kept under questions visitors ask.