Ashington Self Storage

Ashington Self Storage.  There’s a particular kind of pride that runs through Ashington, and it isn’t hard to understand why. This is a town that was, for a time, the biggest pit village in the entire world – and one that turned the hardship of coal mining into something genuinely remarkable: an internationally recognised school of working-class art. That’s the kind of place Ashington is. NE Self Storage, based a short drive away in Cramlington, is glad to play a small supporting role in its present-day story.

Ashington Self Storage

📞 Call or WhatsApp:  07764 447599
🌐 Book and Pay for your Self Storage on our ‘Sister’ Site Now:  https://northeastcontainerstorage.com/book-pay-now/
📍 Visit our Depot:  North Nelson Industrial Estate, Cramlington, NE23 1WP.

From Farm to the World’s Largest Pit Village

It’s easy to forget, given everything that came after, that Ashington began life as little more than a single farm. As late as the 1700s, that’s all there was – a scattering of dwellings around a working farmstead, in a quiet wooded valley whose name, Essendene, had been recorded since 1170. Everything changed in the 1840s, when the Duke of Portland built housing to bring workers – many fleeing the Great Famine in Ireland – to staff the collieries opening nearby.

What followed was extraordinary growth. By the 1920s, five separate pits in and around Ashington employed roughly 5,500 men, and the town earned its famous reputation as the biggest pit village in the world – a claim so central to local identity that, even now, there’s a genuine debate about whether Ashington should properly be called a town or simply the largest village in England. Either way, by the early twentieth century, Ashington was at the very centre of a coalfield producing a quarter of all coal mined in Britain.

The Pitmen Painters

Perhaps the most remarkable part of Ashington’s story has nothing to do with coal output at all. In 1934, a group of local miners enrolled in evening art classes, looking for something to occupy their limited free time. What emerged – under the name the Ashington Group, though the world came to know them as the “Pitmen Painters” – was a body of work so striking that it earned exhibitions in major galleries and, decades later, inspired a stage play by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall, performed everywhere from Broadway to Buenos Aires. It remains one of the most unlikely and beloved chapters in British art history, and it speaks to something distinctive about Ashington: a town that has always found ways to express itself, even in difficult times.

After the Pits

Like so many former coalfield towns, Ashington faced a profound shift when deep mining declined through the 1980s and 90s, with the last working colliery, Ellington, closing in 2005. The site of the old Ashington Colliery has since been redeveloped into Wansbeck Business Park, now home to a mix of local, national, and international companies – a practical, ongoing example of the town finding new economic footing on old industrial ground.

The former Woodhorn Colliery, meanwhile, has become something rather special: Woodhorn Museum, set within the Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, preserves the original colliery buildings and tells the story of the coalfield, the miners, and the Pitmen Painters all in one place. It’s a focal point for the town’s history and identity, and host to the long-running Ashington Miners’ Picnic each summer – a tradition stretching back some 150 years.

The town itself has continued to invest in its present, too: a £21m leisure centre opened in 2016, alongside a new retirement complex, an updated town centre, and ongoing regeneration around Station Road. Ashington today carries its mining heritage with evident pride, while building a town centre and community life that looks firmly forward.

Storage Needs in a Town That Keeps Reinventing Itself

Ashington’s mix of established residential streets, ongoing town centre development, and a steady programme of regeneration creates a fairly distinctive set of storage needs:

• House clearances and downsizing. With many long-settled families and an ageing housing stock in parts of the town, clearances, downsizing, and probate situations are common – and storage gives breathing space while decisions about belongings are made.
• Business storage at Wansbeck Business Park and beyond. Companies operating from the regenerated business park, along with independent traders across town, often need flexible storage for stock and equipment without the cost of additional commercial premises.
• Renovation and refit storage. As homes and town centre units are modernised, clearing a space entirely – rather than working around stored furniture – makes renovation work faster and safer.
  Coastal and leisure equipment. With Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and Druridge Bay close by, plenty of Ashington households store bikes, surfboards, and outdoor gear that doesn’t always fit neatly at home.
• Moving home. As with anywhere, the simple mismatch of moving dates between selling and buying creates a need for short-term, flexible storage.

A Short, Easy Drive from Cramlington

Our secure container facility sits on the North Nelson Park Industrial Estate in Cramlington, just off the A1 and A19 – a straightforward drive from Ashington that most customers manage comfortably in well under twenty minutes. It’s a journey many already make for shopping, work, or family connections across southeast Northumberland.

We offer three container sizes to suit most situations:

• 10ft self storage containers – ideal for smaller loads, seasonal items, or the contents of a single room. From £20 per week.
• 20ft self storage containers – our most popular size, comfortably accommodating the contents of a typical home. From £30 per week.
• 40ft self storage containers – generous space for large households, business stock, or combined storage needs. From £60 per week.

Every unit is covered by our AAA-rated security setup – 24-hour CCTV, high-security perimeter fencing, and a personal gate fob for access whenever you need it. There’s no long-term contract, just simple weekly rental paid four weeks in advance, plus a one-off refundable £50 key and fob deposit.

Get in Touch

Whether you’re clearing a family home, fitting out a unit at Wansbeck Business Park, or simply need somewhere safe and affordable to keep your belongings, we’re a short drive away and happy to help you find the right size.

📞 Call or WhatsApp:  07764 447599
🌐 Book and Pay for your Self Storage on our ‘Sister’ Site Now:  https://northeastcontainerstorage.com/book-pay-now/
📍 Visit our Depot:  North Nelson Industrial Estate, Cramlington, NE23 1WP.