We were introduced to
Sunderland by Doris and Keith MacKnight.
My brother in law had contacted Keith while researching Hylton
Castle. The castle was scheduled to be opening
after its transformation into a visitor’s center around the time of our trip to
England, but it was not ready. The
MacKnights met us at the castle and gave us a pre-opening tour. They had grown up in the shadow of the castle
and were instrumental in securing the funding for its restoration. Doris served on the city council and also
served a term as mayor of the city. As
such, we had a tour of not only the castle and its grounds but on three
occasions they took us on tours of the city of Sunderland and its environs
including Raby Castle, a bar and restaurant at the base of the limestone cliffs
called The Grotto, the city shopping mall called the Bridges, and the ancestral
Washington Home in nearby Washington town.
Sunderland itself is a
former industrial giant located at the mouth of the River Wear in Durham
county. Millions of tons of coal were
shipped through here, and it was one of the foremost shipbuilding cities in the
world for over 100 years. It had a glass
industry that is now gone but the National Glass Museum and a knowledge base of
glass technology remain at the University of Sunderland. Coal production has been shut down due to
environmental regulations and the move to cleaner fuels, the shipbuilding and
glass manufacturing moved to Asian countries where labor was cheaper and infrastructure
newer. It is a lot like the cities that
I know around Boston that have had to reinvent themselves replacing heavy
industry with service and high technology.
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