David Allan @davidallan@mastodonapp.uk
Public

Not sure whether locals still refer to this location as 'Byer Bank', but that's what it was called back in the 19th century.
Across the road from the Copt Hill public house, visitors making their way to the nearby Bronze Age barrow historic landmark will probably recognise the location.
I had no idea it had a name, but an OS map dated 1896 has it marked as 'Byer Bank', although bank then, it wasn't used as a path/bridleway.
If you were standing here back then, you would be on the route of the Hetton Colliery Railway, a route that brought coal from the collieries at Elemore and Hetton, all the way up to Warden Law before gradually descending all the way down to the coals drops on the River Wear.
In fact, at one point, this looks to have been where two separate rail lines came together, the other one being the Rainton & Seaham Railway, coming in from the right.

The sun setting on a cold December evening as viewed from a bridleway/footpath above Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland in NE England. Historically, back in the 19th century, this was a railway line, part of a vast network of lines that conveyed coal from the collieries across the Durham coalfield to the drops on the River Wear.
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