Cambois (/ˈkæməs/ KAM-əs) is a village in south-east Northumberland, England.[1][2] It is situated on the north side of the estuary of the River Blyth between Blyth and Ashington on the North Sea coast.
| Cambois | |
|---|---|
 Cambois Fishing Fleet | |
  Cambois Location within Northumberland | |
| OS grid reference | NZ305835 |
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BLYTH |
| Postcode district | NE24 |
| Dialling code | 01670 |
| Police | Northumbria |
| Fire | Northumberland |
| Ambulance | North East |
| UK Parliament | |
Etymology
editAccording to earlier scholarship, the etymon of the name is probably Gaelic cambas "bay, creek". However, the name could equally be from the Cumbric cognate of cambas, *camas "bend in a river, bay", which would fit with Cambois's location at the confluence of the Sleek Burn and the River Blyth. In either case, the spelling seems to have been influenced by French bois "wood".[3]
History
edit
Cambois was a township in Bedlingtonshire which, until 1844, was part of County Durham. It was a coal mining village from 1862 to week ending 20 April 1968 when Cambois Colliery closed.
Cambois is now closely related to the area known as North Blyth. The main commercial activity was the importation of alumina for the manufacture of aluminium at Lynemouth, but that smelter has now closed. Alumina is still imported and moved by rail to a smelter powered by the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme, near Fort William on the west coast of Scotland.
In 1883, the Coal Company gave a list of the property it owned, or leased:
| North Blyth Staithes | 7 houses |
| Mr Moore, colliery Manager | 1 house |
| Mood & Scott | 2 houses |
| Stable Cottage | 1 house |
| Schoolmaster's House (at Boca Chica) | 1 house |
| Sea View | 12 houses |
| Quality Row | 18 houses |
| Sinker's Row | 20 houses |
| Chapel Row | 20 houses |
| Mawburn Terrace | 30 houses |
| Gee's Houses | 30 houses |
| Watergate | 29 houses |
| Cowgate | 26 houses |
| Bridge Street | 40 houses |
| Boca Chica | 46 houses |
| Boat House Terrace | 46 houses |
| Mr Freeman | 5 houses |
| New Cottages | 18 houses |
| Store Row | |
| Institute Row | 3 houses |
Proposed gigafactory, then data centre
editIn December 2020, Cambois was confirmed as the location for a new Britishvolt battery manufacturing plant.[4] In July 2021, plans for the £2.6bn gigafactory employing 3,000 people were approved, with the new plant to be located on former coalyards adjacent to the now-demolished power station in Cambois. It will produce lithium-ion batteries for the automotive industry.[5] Britishvolt appointed ISG as its construction partner who began work on clearing the site in late 2021.[6] In January 2022, the UK government, through its Automotive Transformation Fund, invested £100m in the Britishvolt project, alongside asset management company abrdn and its property investment arm Tritax,[7] developing what was planned to be Britain's fourth largest building.[8] However, construction work was halted in August 2022 amid funding concerns,[9] with manufacturing now set to start in mid-2025, more than a year later than initially planned.[10] On 17 January 2023, Britishvolt went into administration, and its factory site was put up for sale.[11][12]
Some 15 months later, the site was acquired for construction of a data centre,[13][14] ending hopes for thousands of manufacturing jobs in the region.[15] However, plans submitted in December 2024 envisaged development of up to 10 data centre buildings totalling up to 540,000sq m, representing an investment of up to £10bn, with 1,200 long-term construction jobs plus employment in the data centres.[16]
References
edit- ^ Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 81 Alnwick & Morpeth (Rothbury & Amble) (Map). Ordnance Survey. 2014. ISBN 9780319242094.
- ^ "Ordnance Survey: 1:50,000 Scale Gazetteer" (csv (download)). www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Ordnance Survey. 1 January 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- ^ Fox, Bethany (2007). "The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland (Appendix: Discussion of Individual Names)". The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe (10).
- ^ Sheehan, Sam (11 December 2020). "£2.6bn Gigafactory planned for Blyth". Pistonheads. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
- ^ Harrison, James (4 July 2021). "Northumberland gigafactory set to secure planning permission". BusinessLive. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ "Britishvolt begins construction on Blyth factory". Electrive.com. 7 September 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ Jolly, Jasper (21 January 2022). "Britishvolt gets £100m boost to build UK's first large-scale 'gigafactory'". Guardian. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ Whitfield, Graeme (22 January 2022). "Britishvolt: how a start-up found £1.7bn to make gigafactory vision a reality". BusinessLive. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ Lowe, Tom (16 August 2022). "ISG pauses work on £2.6bn car battery 'gigafactory' amid funding delays". Building. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ Gayne, Daniel (30 August 2022). "Britishvolt delays production plans for 18 months on gigafactory set to be built by ISG". Building. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ Jack, Simon; Nanji, Noor (17 January 2023). "Britishvolt: UK battery start-up collapses into administration". BBC News. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
- ^ "Battery startup Britishvolt enters administration as rescue talks fail". The Guardian. 17 January 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
- ^ "Blackstone to build one of Western Europe's largest data centres on former BritishVolt site". BE News. 15 April 2024. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
- ^ Denten, Mark; Manning, Jonny (15 April 2024). "Plans for gigafactory ditched in favour of data centre". BBC News. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
- ^ Jolly, Jasper (15 April 2024). "Britishvolt 'gigafactory' site sold for £110m to US private equity firm". Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
- ^ "Plans go in for £10bn Northumberland data centre". Infrastructure Intelligence. 4 December 2024. Retrieved 4 December 2024.
External links
edit
Media related to Cambois at Wikimedia Commons
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