Killingworth

Killingworth, formerly Killingworth Township, is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. Lying within the historic county of Northumberland. Killingworth was built as a new town in the 1960s, next to Killingworth Village, which existed for centuries before the new town was built. Other nearby villages include Forest Hall, West Moor and Backworth. Killingworth has bus links to the rest of Tyne and Wear. The town is not on the Tyne and Wear Metro network; its nearest stations are Palmersville and Benton. The town of Killingworth in Australia is named after the British original because of its extensive coal mines. Killingworth was used as a filming location for the 1973 BBC sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, with one of the houses on Agincourt on the Highfields estate featuring as the home of Bob and Thelma Ferris. In an episode of the architecture series Grundy's Wonders on Tyne Tees, John Grundy deemed Killingworth's former British Gas Research Centre to be the best industrial building in the North East. The Doctor Who episode titled "The Mark of the Rani" depicted Killingworth in the 19th century, with the Sixth Doctor in search of George Stephenson, after the Doctor's archenemy The Master attempts to hijack the Industrial Revolution. Filming of the episode took place in the 19th-century mining village at Blists Hill Open Air Museum in Ironbridge, however. According to Jennifer Morrison there is no recorded evidence of early human activity at Killingworth. She asserts that this may be due in part to a lack of fieldwork in the area. Subsequent mining, spoil heaps and landscaping disturbed the stratigraphy and damaged or destroyed artifacts. Documentary evidence for Killingworth starts in 1242 when it is recorded as part of the land held by Roger de Merlay III. There were nine recorded taxpayers in 1296, falling to eight by 1312. In a survey of the township dated 1373 listed sixteen tenements (land holdings). Other enclosed land was kept as common land; formed Killingworth Moor.