The first recorded activity in the Wardley district was when the great road engineers of the Roman army built the Wrekendyke from Springwell to their fort, Arbia at South Shields in 128 AD. It is also known as the Leam Road or more commonly as the Roman Road and ran through the White Mare area of Wardley. The land was low and marshy with lime tinted pools of water which give it it's name, i.e. in Old English “hwit mere” or white lake. In Anglo Saxon times the district of Wardley from the word “weard and leah or lea” meaning the watchman's or wordens lying meadow.
It is believed that in 995 Wardley is where the wandering Lindisfarne Monks carrying the body of St Cuthbert rested. After three days of fasting, watching and prayers, they received the revelation that directed them to Durham, where they later built its great cathedral.
In 1264 Prior Hugh de Darlington “built at Wardley a hall, a court and a chapel, which the Scots later destroyed.” On the site was built the Manor house of Wardley which was enclosed by a deep fosse with an earthen mound on the outer side.
In 1530 the Brandling family owned the Manor and by 1660 Robert Ellison was the owner. The site was occupied by Manor House and South Wardley farm, together with Lingey House Farm, the Wardley area for the next 200 years was an agricultural community with the exception of the George Stephenson designed Pontop to Jarrow railway line through Wardley by John Bowes and Partners in 1826 to take coal to Jarrow Staiths.
The land behind the White Mare Pool was called Boldon Fell. It was here in the 1830's that tens of thousands of miners and trade unionists met to hear Thomas Hepburn and others speak for better conditions for workers. It was a convenient assembly point for people from Sunderland, South Shields, Springwell, Gateshead and Newcastle.
The Felling Coal Company, owned by the Carr brothers, started sinking a shaft at Wardley in 1864, but it flooded and was not a success. Bowes and Partners bought the workings in 1868 and Alfred Septimes Palmer, the brother of Charles Mark Palmer who founded the Jarrow shipyards in 1852, completed the work and the pit commenced drawing coal on June 17. 1871. Wardley Hall (now the British Legion Club) was built as his home in 1873 on top of a hill (Palmers Bank) with access to Sunderland Road. 

In the 1871 census only 35 dwellings are listed for Wardley. Over the next three years the company decided to build homes for the miners. The terraced rows of houses were called:
Railway Row, Smokey Row, Double Row West, Palmers Row, Turnpike Road, Waggonway Row, Double Row East, Reservoir Row, Pump Row, South Row and Sinkers Row
Wardley Hall and its Lodge were built in 1873 as the home of Alfred Septimus Palmer, the pits agent and manager.
By the 1891 census the colliery streets were renamed and became known as:
First Street (Sinkers Row), Second Street (Double Row East and Double Row West). and Third Street (Palmers Row), Reservoir Street (Railway Row and Reservoir Row) and Quality Terrace ( South Row ) and The Square (Pump Row) were on the south side bordering the Sunderland turnpike Road which opened in 1896.
As the population grew in numbers Wardley Board School was built in 1879 for the education of local children. Next to it in 1884, a Primitive Methodist Chapel was constructed. It was licensed only for baptisms and chapel members would either be married at Bill Quay Methodist Chapel at Wellfield Terrace or St Mary's Church at Heworth. The New Connection Methodist members had a Chapel at 12 Second sheet. They later built the Robert Clayton Memorial Chapel (it later became known as tne Tin Chapel near the Miners Welfare Hall which in 1919 became St Aidan's Mission Church, an outreach of St. Mary’s. Probably all Wardley burials were at St Mary’s Churchyard at Heworth but many services were held at the Methodist Chapel.
In 1907 Bowes and Partners decided to sink another pit a short distance away at Follingsby and a street of houses named Follingsby Terrace was built and temporarily housed some of the sinkers. The colliery drew coal in September 1912 but Wardley had closed in December 1911. Most of the men who had stayed in the pit village found work at the new pit.
The local public houses were the White Mare Pool (there has been an ale house here since the 1600's and ‘The Green’ now stands on the site) and The Railway Hotel, built opposite the ‘Pool’ after the opening in 1850 of the nearby Leamside railway line.
In 1919 a ‘Ivy Leaf’ club was built beside the school by a number of ex servicemen. A few years later it became the British Legion.
'Woodbine House' was built in 1888 near the pit bridge and was, for a short time, a public house called The Colliery Inn. It then became a shop and by 1911 it was the Post Office and newsagents. Next to it stands Lodge House which was built in 1939 for the Follingsby Miners Lodge secretary. Beside the house in 1889 the miners built a Welfare Hall and Reading Room. It burnt down in 1938 and the Lenin Banner was lost in the fire. Close by, Wardley Colliery and Bill Quay Co-operative Store was opened in 1922, it was a branch of the Felling Shore, Heworth and Bill Quay Co-operative Society. It closed c1952 and moved to Keir Hardie Avenue on the new Ellen Wilkinson Estate.
Twenty four new three bed roomed houses were built and called West Crescent in 1922. The following year a further 18 homes in three small terraces were built in the street. The village policeman moved here from No.1 Quality Terrace. The street was considered a place where colliery officials lived. During 1926-27, the welfare ground, consisting of football and cricket pitches, bowling green and tennis courts and the children's play area was constructed.
In 1936 most of the old colliery sheets were listed for demolition and most, apart from Quality Terrace and one side of Waggonway Street were gone by 1939. The residents were rehoused in 1938 on a new council estate on the north side of the Pontop railway line. The houses had electricity, indoor flush toilets and a bathroom!
The streets were called :
Whitemere Gardens, Palmer Gardens, Lingey Gardens, Leam Gardens
Moat Gardens, Fellgate Gardens, Wreken Gardens, Manor Gardens
(Stansfield Gardens was later built in 1955).

Follingsby Colliery closed in October 1938 but shortly afterwards the Washington Coal Company became interested and both Wardley and Follingsby Collieries were working in the early days of World War Two.
Another new council estate was built in 1950-1952 and named The Ellen Wilkinson Estate after the Jarrow Labour M.P. Its streets were:
Thorne Avenue, Harvey Crescent, Morris Gardens, Cripps Avenue
Kirkwood Avenue, Keir Hardie Avenue,, Shaw Gardens, Cook Gardens,
Baker Gardens, Laskie Gardens, Bondfield Gardens, Lansbury Gardens
Webb Gardens, Bevan Gardens, Cole Gardens, Pankhurst Gardens
Henderson Gardens, Loveless Gardens, Priestley Gardens, Addison Gardens
(The bungalows of Toberty Gardens were added at a later date)
The old Methodist Chapel, along with the school, was now isolated from the community they served. In 1956, the chapel moved to Thorne Avenue and the Infant school to Keir Hardie Avenue.
Wardley Juniors eventually moved to the some location in 1968.
The two remaining streets of the original pit village, Quality Terrace and Waggonway sheet, were demolished in 1957.
Most of the land of South Wardley Farm was sold c1959 and shortly after a private estate called South Wardley was built. Its streets are named:
Wardley Lane, Wardley Drive, Silverdale Avenue, Daryl Way
Julian Way, Briardene Drive, Romily Grove, Wardley Court

Wardley Colliery which had been use as a man riding shaft and had pit baths, new canteens offices etc. built in 1958 was one of the many pits to close in the Northern coal fields in the 1960s and it saw its last working days in 1969. Follonsby had been drawing Usworth Colliery coal but it to closed in 1974. The Pontop to Jarrow railway ceased to operate on Friday, October 4. 1974.     when Kibblesworth Colliery, the     last pit on the line, appeared on the N.C.B. hit list. A small stretch of the line from Wardley and Follingsby pit yards to Jarrow Staiths and Mokton Coke Works was renamed the Monkton Railway until it closed in 1986.

A number of the old buildings can still be seen today.
South Wardley Farm still stands as stables for horses.
Wardley Hall (1873) is now the British Legion Club and Palmers private Coach Road is   now a bridle path at the back of the Broadlands Estate.
Wardley Hall Cottages (1904) are at the entrance to Wardley Hall (known locally as Palmers Hall)
Woodbine House (1888) is now a private home and next to it is Lodge House (1939)
The original houses of West Crescent are passed on the way the council run welfare ground.
The pretty 'white house' at the beginning of Wardley Lane was formerly Ellisons Shop and built in 1911.
The 1958 rebuilt pit head premises can still be seen but are now vandalised. The pit laboratory and caretaker house still exists in the centre of Coates and Son who run a vehicle dismantling sevice and scrap yard since c1982 on the land where once stood Manor House Farm and the ancient 13th Century Priory and Manor House of Wardley