"Incidentally The Barber Band's version of Bobby Shaftoe was quite popular at one time. I believe this had folk origins."

Bobby Shafto and Tommy Armstrong

Dating back to the seventeen hundreds, the Black Horse, Beamish, was one of ten cottages built on the estate of the infamous Bobby Shafto. MP for County Durham from 1760-68, he was born at Whitworth and was immortalised in the famous northern song, "Bonny Bobby Shafto".

The song was used as an election ditty and is thought to be based on the hopes of Mary Bellasis of Brancepeth Castle who believed that Bobby Shafto would come back and marry her. Sadly, he married someone else and Mary is said to have died of a broken heart.

The Black Horse - then the Red Row Inn - was the first and largest of the cottages which all had red tiled roofs, hence the name Red Row. Leases were given to build the cottages on the condition that one able bodied man from each cottage was available to work in the quarry or down the coalmine.

The houses were slums and the miners had no choice but to live in them. In times of strike, miners and their families were evicted from these homes. "Oakey's Strike" was written by Tommy Armstrong - the Pitman's Poet - at the Red Row Inn at Beamish Burn in a duel with rival song-maker William Maguire of Gateshead to improvise a song on the theme of evictions.

"What wad Aw dee, if I had the poower mesel?
Aw wid hang th' twenty candymen and Johnny thit carries the bell."

Sources; Black Horse, Beamish and Sunniside Local History