The name of a town in Northumberland, so called from its situation at the end of the Roman wall. Used attrib. (and ellipt. as sb.), originally as the designation of coal obtained from a local seam now exhausted; subsequently as the trade name for coal of a certain quality, and in pieces too large to pass through a sieve with meshes 5/8 inch in diameter.
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 24. Wallsends are rising in price.
1835. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Mr. Watkins Tottle, i. Three tons of the best Walls-end.
1897. Ainger, in Edith Sichel, Life & Lett. (1906), 289. I have a pound or two of best Walls-end wandering about in my Bronchial cavities.
