Built by the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company in 1876 to house a steam-powered Cornish beam engine which was used to pump water from the River Tyne uphill north to the Whittle Dean Reservoirs.

Further steam engine pumps were provided in 1886 and 1894 and operated until 1918 when electrically driven centrifugal pumps were installed. These were uprated in 1950 and used until 1976 when they were replaced by works constructed at Ovingham, 0.5 miles upriver.

New pumps were installed later within the old buildings which pump drinking water from the Horsley Treatment Works to the area south of the river.

The 1905  & 1906 adverts for Bullivant and Co. (72 Mark Lane and Millwall, wire rope makers and engineers) shows the 600 yards long aerial ropeway that was erected for the Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks to bring construction materials to the Wylam Waterworks from railway sidings on the other side of the River Tyne.

The ropeway was constructed with 10 lattice-steel towers some 28 feet high, giving a clearance of 40 feet above river level, with a maximum span of 160 yeads. It was in place by 1903.

A terminal on the south bank was built to connect with a branch of the North Eastern Railway from a location just south of the junction at Hagg Bank. Two of the ten concrete piers used to span the river can still be seen, one on the south bank close to the path in Ovingham Riverside Park, and the other in the river close to the north bank.

The aerial ropeway was built in 1890 and operated by the Newcastle & Gateshead Water Company for some 16 years. It was used initially to supply coal as fuel for the water works and sand for filters at Whittle Dene. Later, sand, gravel and stone were transported to be used for the construction of the network of outer reservoirs and tunnels. 20 tons could be handled per day. Construction materials were taken onwards by a narrow-gauge mineral railway built from Wylam to Matfen and alongside the Whittington Tunnel towards Hallington. Other short sections of track aided construction at Woodburn and Catcleugh.

The Ryal tunnel (1859) and Whittington tunnel (1905) were constructed to convey water from sources in the Hallington area, and further north-west, to the reservoirs at Whittle Dean. They were built to improve the supply of fresh water to the growing population and industrial use in Newcastle & Gateshead.

Around 1860, as part of creating the new 6" to 1 mile Ordnance Survey map for this area, the team whose job it was to collect the names to go on the new map recorded several instances of the name, Whittledean Water Course.

The OS Name Book for Stamforham p87 records:
"A work in the course of formation. When finished it will greatrly increase the comforts of the inhabitants of Newcastle as it will supply them with good water and plenty of it. The name only applies to the open water course & not to the tunnelled portion as that of course is not visible."

However the name, Whittledean Waterworks did get applied to part of the tunnelled section in the region of Cobs on the first edition 6" map (Northumberland Sheet LXXVIII Surveyed: 1859, Published: 1866), where the map shows part of the line of shafts, each in a small enclosure.

The Name Book description (St John Lee p17) states:
"It [water] is conveyed through an arch in this part of the parish it has a few shafts to facilitate communication
if repair be necessary, in the neighbourhood of Hallington it is an open water course having its sides faced with rubble
stone & is about 5 foot deep."

Later OS maps do not show the name and although the locations of all 12 shafts are still quite visible today, and the eartrhworks themselves are shown on large scale maps, their purpose has been forgotten, and they are often interpreted as shafts for coal mining.

Perhaps this is not so surprising as 11 of the 12 shafts (and the two later ones used to construct the parallel Whittington tunnel) are shown as Mine Entries on the Coal Authority Interactive Map. The nearest true coal shafts, however, are to the south-east on Todridge Fell.

The entrance to the Ryal tunnel is just west of Airbrough Hill, about 2km west of Ryal, where the open Whittledean Water Course from Hallington goes under the road close to the (now) aptly named, Waterworks Cottage. Water flows by gravity through the 2 mile long tunnel to emerge in a cutting near West Farm at Matfen. It is conveyed from there, mainly via open aqueduct, to the northern reservoir at Whittledean.

If it is to be believed, the OS Name Books describe an impressive feature close to the works at the fourth shaft (from the tunnel's west end). Hell's Caldron (St John Lee p.17): "A slight indentation in the ground before
the formation of the water works (a few years ago)
it was a natural fountain the water boiling
to the height of about 4 feet a small indentation
in the grass is all that now remains of it".

One of the authorities for the name was one William Coulson who lived at Grindstone Law. A paper by him was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle in 1860 and published in their journal (W Coulson, 1861. Denisesburn. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 2. Vol 5, pp. 103-108). In the paper he describes the Caldron and its legend: "Grass covers its site, and the tradition is sinking into forgetfulness, living still, however, in the memory of many. Some there are who have seen the Cothem in its pristine state, and remember the awe which the story imparted to a sight of it."

Rennison (1979) wrrote (p.229) that around 1908 "... the old tunnel at Ryal became blocked by a collapse at its upstream end, requiring a new shaft to be sunk for access to it, following which the tunnel was timbered throughout the sections at risk and then religned".

Company engineer, Charles Hawksley, reported in December 1899 that the existing Ryal tunnel and its associated aqueduct were considered incapable of carrying more than 10-12 m.g.d. and as a result he recommended that a new 36" main be laid between Hallington Reservoirs and the entrance of the present tunnel near which would be the entrance of a new bigger tunnel. Both tunnels would discharge water into the River Pont (Rennison p.199).

The location of the two primary shafts from which the later Whittington tunnel was constructed are quite clear on maps and in aerial view. The western shaft is located just east of Grindstonelaw, and the eastern, just west of Delight. Both shafts and spoil heaps are within quite large sub-rectangular enclosures, now partly wooded.

Compressed air drilling equipment greatly aided the comstruction of the new tunnel although a third shaft was sunk later between Matfen and the eastern of the two original shafts to provide an additional two faces

The Whittington tunnel is described by Rennison as being 3 miles in length, parallel and south of the Ryal tunnel, The western entrance to the tunnel is however unclear. Rennison says its western end is fed by a pipe from Hallington so there is probably nothing to see on the ground. The eastern end could be the water outlet located just west of the Golf Club-house at Matfen Hall as this joins the River Pont also used further downstream by water from the Ryal outlet.

All Saints' Church in Ryal has a plaque commemorating four workmen & five children or infants who died during the construction of Whittington tunnel and aqueduct works between 1901-1905. There are more details on the Find a Grave website.

The Hexham Courant reported on 04 April 1903 that an epidemic of smallpox continued to rage among the residents of the huts belonging to the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company at Matfen. This probably accounts for the infant deaths on the Ryal church memorial.

On 25 April 1903 the epidemic had reached the Catcleugh Waterworks from where two cases of smallpox were notified. They are stated to have been imported from Matfen. In response, about 400 navvies at the works were vaccinated.

As shown below, many of the spoil heaps around the Ryal tunnel shafts are identified on Historic England's Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer.
 
Between some of these sites straight banks are also recorded, and interpreted as tramways, perhaps here built locally to aid transport of materials to and from the minor road (course of the Devil's Causeway Roman Road).
Further details are recorded as Monument No: 1458128

On the excerpt below, the spoil heap of the Grindstonelaw shaft of the Whittington tunnel can also be seen (Monument No: 1458178) but not the one near Delight. However, there appears to be no trace of the narrow-gauge railway that was run westwards along the line of the tunnel and reported by Rennison.

Below I have attempted to overlay my map of the tunnel shafts and water-courses (the first in the blog) with Rennison's large scale plans (Map 5 & Map 15 shown in the Timeline section). As they had to be scaled and slightly rotated to fit, the result is far from perfect.

It does appear to show the course of the two parallel tunnels, a different outlet for the Whittington tunnel, and the course of the narrow-gauge railway built to serve that location in the parkland of Matfen Hall.

Timeline

Reference: R W Rennison (1979). Water to Tyneside. Newcastle & Gateshead Water Company.
 

1845-1863 Whittle Dean Water Company
 
1848
Construction of the original group of five reservoirs at Whittle Dean completed.
Water conveyed by a 24” pipeline to Newcastle (including that through Heddon to a reservoir at Throckley).
 
1853
Cholera epidemic in Newcastle.
Act of Parliament to enable company to obtain better water supply by aqueduct from River Pont.

1854
Act of Parliament allowing company to collect water by intercepting streams in the Hallington area and transport it to the main reservoirs at Whittle Dean by construction of an aqueduct. Work would include a 3,887 yard (3,554m) tunnel to allow water to flow by gravity through a ridge of higher land  at Ryal.
 
1856
Tenders requested for construction of the tunnel.
Contract awarded to R Mains & Co. who quoted £7,101 for the work.
Arrangement made with the Duke of Northumberland for brickworks at Tongues.
 
1857
Work started on tunnel.
 
1858
Mains & Co. paid £500 for work done and second contract awarded to Roper & Smith who was working on 7 out of 12 shafts by March.
Only 1,471 yds of tunnel excavated by 1st December and works taken over by Richard Cail thought to be employing 200-300 workmen.
 
1859
Ryal Tunnel completed by 31st December.

1860
Sale of plant including 9 steam engines, 60 tons of bridge rails, 14 sets of pumps & 2 brick and tile-making machines
Land at Tongues Farm returned to agricultural use.
Workmen’s huts demolished and most shafts arched over & filled in.

1863
Act of Parliament obtained for construction of reservoir at Hallington.
Company name changed to the Newcastle & Gateshead Water Company.
 
1863- Newcastle & Gateshead Water Company
 
1866
Act of Parliament obtained to extend time limit for construction of Hallington Reservoir
 
1869
Work started on construction of Hallington Reservoir
Construction aided by a narrow gauge railway to transport stone 3 miles from Moot Law Quarry
Locomotive obtained from Black, Hawthorn & Co. of Gateshead
 
1872
Work on Hallington Reservoir completed
Surplus plant and locomotive sold
Water transported from Hallington reservoir using the existing aqueduct and Ryal Tunnel (completed in 1859)
 
1877
Act of Parliament to authorise building reservoir at Little Swinburn and at the same time extended the time allowed to build West Hallington reservoir.
 
1879
Aqueduct between Little Swinburne and Hallington reservoirs commissioned
 
1880
Land was bought in 1880 for West Hallington Reservoir but construction did not start until Colt Crag reservoir, and the Swinburn reservoir were completed.
 
1884
Works began on West Hallington Reservoir using 60 navies.
Narrow gauge railway laid to transport stone from a quarry near Colt Crag Reservoir.
 
1889
West Hallington Reservoir filling
 
1892
Construction of pipeline from River Rede to Hallington. 23 of 27 miles completed by 1895.
 
1894
Act of Parliament allowing construction of a much enlarged Catcleugh Reservoir on River Rede
Using narrow gauge railway from Woodburn to Catcleugh
Hutted village for workmen at Catcleugh (1899: 331 men, 70 women, 94 children).

1898
Act of Parliament to improve carrying capacity of the tunnels and aqueducts.
Authorised construction of a new tunnel, 3 miles long, parallel to the Ryal tunnel, with its western end fed by a pipe from Hallington.
Also authorised narrow-gauge railway from Matfen to Wylam (part of which was already in operation for construction of filters at Whittle Dean).
Huts were erected on a site at eastern end of the tunnel, on land leased from Sir Edward Blackett. Here also were situated offices, a spoil heap, a canteen, and railway sidings for the narrow-gauge railway that was to run westwards along the line of the tunnel, and south-eastwards to Whittle Dean.
Arrangements were made to construct an aerial ropeway 600yds long crossing the River Tyne from Wylam (just west of the Wylam Pumping Station) to Prudhoe, where a terminal was constructed to link to a branch of the North Eastern Railway. The ropeway was supplied by Bullivant & Co. with 10 lattice steel towers some 28 feet high giving a clearance of 40 feet above river level, with a maximum span of 160 yeads. It was in place by 1903.

See advert below for Bullivant & Co. Ltd. taken from Grace's Guide.

Unlike the earlier Ryal tunnel which had been constructed from 12 shafts, the new one was at first driven from only two, so providing six driving faces, mainly in rock.
Tunnel was lit by electricity and compressed air drilling equipment used.
A third shaft was later sunk between Matfen and the eastern of the two shafts.
One third of the tunnel completed by 1903.
 
1905
Whittington tunnel completed.
Catcleugh Reservoir completed.
 
“The completion of Catcleugh reservoir, with its associated works, brought to an end a period of archetypal Victorian enterprise, a period of sixty years during which the quantity of water supplied daily had increased thirty-fold and the capital expended by the Company had risen from £55,000 to £3.6m.” (Rennison 1979: 227).
 
Responsibility for the reservoirs and other infra-structure passed to the Northumbrian Water Authority in April 1974, as a result of the passing of the Water Act 1973. It then passed to Northumbrian Water when the water industry was privatised in 1989.

Published 2022.

Edited by Alan Rushworth with text and illustrations by Alan Rushworth, Richard Carlton, Marc Johnstone, Adam Leigh and Peter Ryder (The Archaeological Practice Ltd), Kerry Shaw (WallCAP), Ian Kille and Les Turnbull.

A pdf copy of the Atlas can be downloaded from this website at the following link.

Note: the download pdf (6MB) provided is a heavily compressed version of the original file (253MB).
The result is much degraded reproduction of figures and photographs.

I will provide a link to download larger versions when that becomes available elsewhere online.

Thanks to the work of David & Margaret Blackett, the Knott Memorial Hall in Heddon has been successful in acquiring the 'Photographing the Roman Wall Exhibition’ touring as part of the Hadrian's Wall 1900 Festival.

This amazing collection of photographs were taken by Hexham Chemist, John Pattinson Gibson between 1886 and 1910. They were left in the care of Northumberland Archives. This year, Hadrian 1900 lottery funding has enabled a public exhibition. They have also been on display at Haltwhistle Town Hall and Hexham Abbey.

They will be on display in the Knott Memorial Hall, Heddon on the Wall from 31st October until 18th November.

Heddon Local History Society are hosting an introductory talk about the collection by Kate St Clair Gibson (Local Studies Librarian, Northumberland Archives) on Wednesday 9th November at 2pm in the Knott Hall.

Image dated c1955 - c1978 from Historic England

The shop was owned by the Gibson family, and was opened c1834, and closed c1978. J. P. Gibson, b.1838, became a notable photographer of archaeology, and helped to develop an artist style of photography in the late 19th century. The shop front and fittings were saved by the Science Museum in London, as the building was due for demolition, and are currently on display.

John Pattison Gibson was born in Hexham on 4th January 1838, the son of Clara and William Wilson Gibson, the local chemist.

He was educated at Hexham Grammar School and later Newcastle Grammar School after which he served his apprenticeship as a chemist.

Gibson became interested in photography in about 1856 when he had his portrait taken by a school friend in Newcastle. Shortly afterwards he bought a set of apparatus himself for 30 shillings and set up a portrait studio above his father's shop. When he took over father's chemist business, however, he gave up portraiture in favour of landscape photography. He became renowned as a highly distinguished photographer, winning in excess of 50 medals locally and abroad, most notably the Paris International Exhibition of 1899.

Gibson joined the Society of Antiquaries in 1883 and his interest in the Roman Wall grew. His first significant discovery was the Mucklebank Wall turret in 1891 which he happened upon thanks to a rabbit hole. He was involved in the excavation of the turret in 1892.

He later assisted in the excavations at Great Chesters from 1894-6, all the while using his photographs of the findings to report back to the Society.

In 1907-8 he worked with Frank Gerald Simpson in excavating the small fort at Haltwhistle Burn and then once again in 1909, together with F.G. Simpson, he excavated Milecastle 48. The report was published the following year (see link below) and is one of the most important excavation reports published on a site on Hadrian's Wall. In 1911 he was made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

J. P. GIBSON, F.S.A., and F. GERALD SIMPSON (1911), The Milecastle on the Wall of Hadrian at the Poltross Burn. Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society 11 (series 2), p. 390 - 461.

Apart from his enthusiasm for archaeology and photography, Gibson was also a keen member of the local Volunteer Corps and retired as a Major in 1892.

John Pattison Gibson died in Hexham on 22 April 1912, aged 74.

John Pattison Gibson had eight children, one of whom was the renowned Hexham poet, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson  (1878-1962).

Heather land and bent-land,
Black land and white,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land of my delight.

Land of singing waters,
And winds from off the sea,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land where I would be.

Heather land and bent-land,
And valleys rich with corn,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land where I was born.

'Northumberland' by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Hexham's People's Poet.

Wilfrid's sister, Elizabeth Gibson, later Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne (1869-1931), was also a published author and poet.

LINKS

Town's former chemist's has pride of place in London's Science Museum. Hexham Courant 19th November 2019

Hexham Local History Society: Gibson Shop Gallery

Historic England Highlights Fascinating Heritage Sites Listed in 2022 (Published 15 December 2022). .

Historic England List Entry 1483329
Grade II Listed on 6th December 2022

Name: Milestone 7
Location: Adjacent to the north boundary wall of Thornlea Cottage, Tulip Mews, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, NE15 0DR.

Summary
Military milestone, erected between mid-1751 and 1758 as part of the military road linking Newcastle to Carlisle, built in response to the second Jacobite Rising of 1745.
Reasons for DesignationThis milestone erected between 1751 and 1757, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural Interest
A rare, well-preserved, early example of a milestone sited in its original location, its simplicity being characteristic of its C18 date and military origins; It remains fully legible and unusually it only shows distances from one direction i.e. from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Historic interest
The milestone is illustrative of a major military investment in the defences of the North of England in the mid-C18, in response to the Second Jacobite Rising of 1745.

Group value
It benefits from a strong functional, historical and spatial group value with the contemporary listed Grade II Milestones 11 and 15, which are situated further to the west along the Military Road.

History
Milestone 7 marks the distance in miles from the west gate of Newcastle upon Tyne to this point along the military road constructed between Newcastle and Carlisle from 1751 to 1757. Known as the Military Road, currently partly reused by the B6318 and the B6528, the need for it was identified by Field Marshall George Wade (1673-1748), following his failure to intercept the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stewart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) in November 1745. Wade was at Newcastle when the Jacobites marched from Edinburgh, taking Carlisle on the 15th and moving onwards to reach Manchester by the 23rd. Meanwhile, Wade left Newcastle for Carlisle on the 16th but had been forced to halt at Hexham by poor roads and snow, returning to Newcastle by the 22nd, without ever having made contact with the Jacobites. Although the road is now often associated with him, Wade was not involved in its construction as he died in 1748.

The route of the Military Road was surveyed in 1749 and was estimated to cost in the region of £22,450. Following an Act of Parliament in 1751, construction work was contracted-out to two civilian companies, who completed the road in 1757. The first 48km follows the alignment of Hadrian's Wall, with much of the stone used for hardcore being quarried from the historic structure itself, which caused considerable disquiet among antiquarians at the time. The total cost of the road was £22,680, shared by the Cumberland and Northumberland commissioners; this figure included the purchase of land, dry stone boundary walling, stone bridges, the construction of 14 tollhouses, and erection of milestones along the length of the road, in accordance with the Act of Parliament. The original milestones were all slender stone posts and as the principal garrison was housed at Newcastle, the distances marked on them were only given from Newcastle’s west gate.

Milestone 7 is sited in its original position on the southern verge of a minor road that was once part of the main A69 between Newcastle and Hexham, until the village was by-passed in the 1970s, and this section of road was closed to through traffic. It is situated within the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site and lies within one of the scheduled areas for Hadrian's Wall. It is shown on the 1864 25-inch Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1860) and is labelled as 'Old Milestone' on the 1897 edition, as it had been superseded by a metal milestone sited on the turnpiked road about 380m to the east on Great Hill, which shows seven miles from the centre of Newcastle.

DETAILS
Military milestone, erected between mid-1751 and 1758 as part of the military road linking Newcastle to Carlisle, built in response to the second Jacobite Rising of 1745.

MATERIALS
Sandstone.

DESCRIPTION
Situated on the southern verge of the Military Road, formerly part of the B6318 and at one time a section of the A69. The stone pillar stands about one metre high and has a narrow rectangular section approximately 30cm by 15cm with a chamfered rounded upper surface. The face has a roughly punched-tooled surface and is inscribed '7' , representing the distance in miles from the west gate of Newcastle upon Tyne to this point in the mid-C18. The rear of the pillar is hidden from view against a garden wall (the garden wall is excluded from the listing).

SOURCES
Books and journals
Lawson, W, 'The Origin of the Military Road from Newcastle to Carlisle' in Archaelogica
Aelianna, Vol 44, (1966), 185-207
Lawson, W, 'The Construction of the Military Road in Northumberland 1751-1757' in
Archaelogica Aelianna, Vol 1, (1973), 177-193
Websites
Heddon-on-the-Wall Local History Society - Military Road, accessed 15 August 2022 from
http://heddonhistory.weebly.com/blog/military-road
Per Lineam Valli - What is the Military Road, Mike Bishop, 2015 accessed 18 August 2022 from
https://perlineamvalli.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/69-what-is-the-military-road/

For those who keep their eyes open the milepost bearing the figure 8 also survives a mile west within the hedgerow alongside the road on the way to Rudchester.

Those at miles 10, 11 and 12 are also recorded but none of these are listed.

Milestone 16 (440m East of Portgate roundabout) and Milestone 19 (420m East of St Oswalds Hill Head Farm) were Grade II Listed in May 1988 (List Entries: 1303661 and 1042983).

There are a few Grade II Listed milestones attributed to the Military Road in Cumbria but they have metal plates attached to the chamfered faces of a low stone post indicating distances to both Newcastle and Carlisle and likely date to the later 1811 turnpike.

LINKS

Historic England List Entry 1483329 06-Dec-2022

Historic England What's New in 2022 (Archive Link)

The village of Heddon on the Wall appears to have grown up around the location of the 12th Milecastle of Hadrian's Wall. The reasons quite why it did so, and the reasons a notable and early Saxon church (St Andrew's) was founded here are unknown (although see Ad Murum).

Perhaps the rocky mound on which the church was built, standing south of Hadrian's Wall and the Vallum, was already the site of a Roman shrine. However, of this we have no evidence. Maybe the Saxon settlers who chose the spot for their village just liked the view as we do today.

Milecastle 12 of Hadrian's Wall has never been definitively located although its measured location along the line of the Wall was considered to be within the enclosure west of Towne Gate. This was originally the site of Town Farm, later Tulip's Haulage Yard, and recently of the newly built development of houses known as Tulip Mews.

Archaeological investigation of the Town Farm site during this development failed to locate remains of the Milecastle once the farm buildings had been demolished although did reveal limited remains of the curtain Wall itself.

There are a few clues to the location of Milecastle 12:

It is possible that the cottages refered to by Bates were those of Mushroom Row.

Mushroom Row consisted of two rows of houses situated just north of the modern library, south of Chare Bank, which is a footpath which partly follows the ditch of the Vallum. After demolition of the houses in 1955 the site was used by the Amos Brother's Roman Wall Forge and is now the location of a large private house, Forge House.

However, as Bates mentions a "hill-top now covered with the ruins of cottages", this, and its location south of the Vallum, seem to make Mushroom Row an unlikley candidate.

The cottages he refers to are more likely to have been located in the enclosure that is now occupied by Tank House due west of the enclosure that held the buildings of Town Farm and the track which runs from the old road south towards Garden House.

Tank House is located on the north side of Chare Bank. The house name refers to the stone-built water tank that stood on this hilltop site. It was the village water supply from the mid C19th, fed from springs rising near East Heddon. It went out of use when a metal tank on legs was provided further south, close to the library.

The old plans and first edition Ordnance Survey map of Heddon on the Wall shown below show the presence of buildings within the enclosure surrounding Tank House. However, only one building remains there on the 25 inch to 1 mile map of 1897, clearly named, Tank House.

Graeme Stobbs (Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne) came to the same conclusion in a short note published in 2019 from which the following figure has been taken:

Plans show that Town Farm & the enclosure to its west (location of Tank House) were under the same ownership (numbered 5 on the Tithe Award Plan and named as ‘Messrs Orde, Collingwood and Dutton’ on Bell's Plan of 1856.

Stobbs reasons that:

The reason why Milecastle 12 was not located at the Town House farmyard in 1928 or in 2019, is that it actually sits some distance to the west, within the enclosure now known as Tank House Field (No. 1 on map). It might be objected that the eastern (Town Farm farmyard) possibility is one Roman mile from Milecastle 13, but it is well known that milecastles and turrets often lie slightly away from their measured positions for topographic reasons, and the higher ground of the Tank House enclosure may well have been preferred to the measured position. The site of the next milecastle to the east (11) is not established; measurement from its assumed position would place Milecastle 12 just to the west of the Town Farm site.

Archaeological evaluation work within Tank House Field has been quite limited and there is probable potential that remains of Milecastle 12 may well survive within the enclosure, probably to the north-west of the current dwelling house. This should be considered more likely to be the milecastle site than the Town Farm location.

In the photo shown above, the old road runs in the foreground of the above photo from left to right. This was the line of the Military Road (constructed in the 1750s, mainly on the foundations of Hadrian's Wall) and later the course of the A69 from Newcastle to Carlisle. The road closed when the bypass was built. The line of the Wall here lies just south of the road (the Wall perhaps had already been flattened by building within the village).

The track on the left also cuts through bed-rock, runs up towards the rear of Garden House, and divides the enclosures of the original Town Farm and Tank House.

This location is close to the suspected site of Milecastle 12, although it has never been found. Recent archaeology has shown it wasn't in its measured position under the buildings of Town Farm (later Tulip's Haulage Yard) slightly further east.

The road was widened in 1926. At the same time, or perhaps earlier, it was cut deep into sandstone bedrock (visible below the wall) to remove an unnecessary hill. As the milecastle wasn't revealed on the line of Hadrian's Wall further east there is a high possibility that it is located somewhere on the hill in the garden above the wall, the back garden of Tank House. There were old buildings here above the road, indicated on old plans, and it might of course have been completely destroyed.

UPDATE January 2023

Matthew Hobson (2021) proposes a more westerly location of MC12 "somewhere between the western boundary of the current development site and the Shell garage to the west that faces onto Hexham Road. Use of Ground Penetrating Radar could perhaps be used successfully to solve this long-standing question."

An archaeological watching brief at Heddon-on-the-Wall and the probable location of Milecastle 12 by Matthew S. Hobson. Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th series, vol. 50 (2021), pp. 115–132.

Two phases of trenched archaeological evaluation and a watching brief were conducted by Wardell-Armstrong LLP on two nearby plots of land, formerly belonging to Town Farm, and bisected by the projected line of Hadrian’s Wall at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland. The works were deserving of particular scrutiny because the measured location of Milecastle 12, one Roman mile east of the known location of Milecastle 13, falls squarely within the development area. Indeed, a discovery of a pivot stone, probably the northern gate of the milecastle, was recorded close to the west end of an outbuilding of Town Farm in 1926. A number of later investigations at Town Farm have recorded a high degree of truncation on the site and failed to locate traces of either the milecastle or of Hadrian’s Wall.

This has led to the commonly held belief that the remains of the milecastle were probably destroyed during the construction of farm buildings, or indeed earlier. The comprehensive redevelopment of the site, however, has allowed the collection of sufficient data to revisit this issue once again.

Two surviving sections of the Broad Wall were recorded during the watching brief over a 20-metre stretch, proving that later truncation had not removed the entirety of the Roman archaeology on this site. The southern edge of the Wall Ditch and its upper fills were observed in the north-east of the development area and in evaluation trenches excavated along the lane to the north. The only datable finds came from a medieval kiln of unknown function, situated between Hadrian’s Wall and the Wall Ditch. The kiln is similar in form to the one still visible at the western end of the extant stretch of the Wall, 70 metres to the east. This new discovery indicates that there may have been a group of such features in this area in use from approximately the mid-13th to mid-15th century AD. With the exception of the easternmost section of the Broad Wall and the medieval kiln, all of the archaeological discoveries were made within the area of the Scheduled Monument. Each of the significant archaeological deposits, including a buried land surface preserved beneath the Wall, was sampled, but no significant archaeobotanical results were obtained.

While no traces of Milecastle 12 were found, the work has led to the realisation that the discovery of 1926 was very probably made farther to the west than originally thought, where the now more accurately projected line of Hadrian’s Wall meets the former Carlisle to Newcastle main road.

DISCUSSION: THE PROBABLE LOCATION OF MILECASTLE 12

As noted above, the measured location of Milecastle 12 falls within the development area, more or less precisely at the north-west corner of the former farm buildings. The identification of preserved remains of Hadrian’s Wall at this location, in an area which had previously been assumed to have suffered complete truncation, warrants a reassessment of the probable location of this milecastle. The 2019 investigations have confirmed that the line of the Broad
Wall was positioned rather too far south to have been disturbed by the widening of the old Carlisle to Newcastle road in 1926 (referred to above). If the pivot stone discovered during the 1926 roadworks was indeed part of the in situ northern gate of Milecastle 12, the clear implication is that its location is likely to have been farther west, close to where the projected line of the curtain wall meets the remains of the old road. In our estimation the discovery of the pivot stone in 1926 is most likely to havebeen some 90m farther to the west than the measured location of the milecastle, as indicated on fig. 2.

Supporting the idea that the discovery in 1926 was made farther to the west, is the fact that in 1856 the development area and the neighbouring plot of land to the west were both
in possession of Messrs. Ord, Collingwood and Dutton. Stobbs (2020) has correctly observed that if these two plots of land could both be referred to as Town Farm, it would make sense of the fact that the pivot stone was described as having been found ‘close to the western end of an outbuilding of Town Farm’. The idea that the measured location of Milecastle 12 might have fallen west of the current development area, which he also refers to, cannot however be supported. The salient fact, which Stobbs does also note, is that the distance between the so called ‘milecastles’ varied depending upon the terrain and the need to communicate with forts on the Stanegate (Breeze 2006, 64–65). A discrepancy of 90m, between a measured hypothetical mile separating two adjacent milecastles and the actual distance, would be slightly more than the known average, but significantly less than the largest recorded discrepancy of more than 210m. The high level of truncation within the current development area leaves us with a high degree of uncertainty. It is still possible that the pivot stone was found during work linking up the east-west road with the north-south lane which separates these two plots of land. If any remains of the milecastle lay within the western half of the development area they are very likely to have been destroyed. The remaining uncertainty means that in future the location of the milecastle should be sought somewhere between the western boundary of the current development site and the Shell garage to the west that faces onto Hexham Road. Use of Ground Penetrating Radar could perhaps be used successfully to solve this long-standing question.

Many events at several venues around the village on Saturday 3rd September 2022.

LINK
Report in Hexham Courant, 8th September 2022.

During the First World War the Newcastle Illustrated Chronicle featured photographs of soldiers that had been sent in by relatives and friends. Here we have scanned their images to make them available online for those tracing family history or anyone with an interest in the First World War.

Planning application for new houses on Centurion Way and the fence erected by the developer.

The western housing estate in Heddon on the Wall, sometimes called the Bainbridge Estate (from the builders; to differentiate it from the Vallum Estate on the east side), mainly occupies what was originally Crag(e) Field of the Heddon Banks Estate.

There is a nice aerial photo of housing estate as it was being built, discussed on the blog here.

I have (below) annotated parts of the two adjoined sheets (LXXXVII and XCVI) of the first edition 1:10,560 scale OS maps (1864-65) with the field-names taken from a plan of Heddon Banks Estate dated 1827 (NRO 00309/M/69).

All of the streets on the new housing estate were given Roman sounding names: Trajan Walk, Remus Avenue, Aquila Drive, Campus Martius, Mithras Gardens, Taberna Close. Similar names were used on the Vallum Estate and of course for Centurion Way that connects the two.

One street on the south side of the western estate was a slightly later addition and was named Killiebrigs. I often wondered where this name had come from as it is clearly not Roman and seems more Irish or Scottish.

Comparison of the maps shows that this street extends through the original fields to the south of Crag Field, named on the 1827 plan as West Close and East Close.

The Tithe Map of Heddon Banks Estate from 1849 shown below is very nicely drawn but doesn't provide the names of the fields.

We can now see where the name of the street, Killiebrigs, came from. It was derived from the names of two fields, High and Low Killy Brig(e), close to that location on the Heddon Banks Estate. What, however, could be the origin of the names given to the fields?

Brig clearly indicates a bridge.

There is still today a very well-built stone bridge, just east of Close Lea, close to the location of these fields. It took the course of the quarry incline under the track from Heddon Banks to Close Lea. There is a photo of the bridge here.

However, the quarry in Slack Plantation was opened much later than the 1827 plan that shows the field names. The quarry and its tramway incline are indeed not present on the first edition OS map.

Could there be an Irish or Scottish connection to the field-names?

Killybegs (Irish: Na Cealla Beaga) is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is the largest fishing port on the island of Ireland. Its Irish name, Na Cealla Beaga, means 'little cells', a reference to early monastic settlements.

Gaelic cill (pronounced keel) originally meant ‘cell, church’ from Old Irish cell, (ultimately from Latin cella) and now usually means ‘chapel, churchyard’ in modern Gaelic. It is found in a large number of place-names, whose widespread distribution reflects the spread of the both Gaelic language and Celtic Christianity across Scotland. It is frequently used in combination with the name of the saint to whom the church is dedicated (e.g. Kilmartin, Kilmory, Kilpatrick).

Although no remains are visible now, there was a chapel just west of the field of Low Killy Brig, west of the boundary between Heddon on the Wall and Houghton & Close House townships. It stood close to the mansion of Close House:

The area of Close House was probably occupied since at least the thirteenth century but the present house dates only from 1779. The name was originally thought to be Albery Close, which became corrupted as Abbey-le-Close, and gave rise to the belief that it was formerly the site of a monastic house. There was a chantry here though, first referred to in 1313, whose patron was one John Turpyn, the son of Richard Turpyn (Turpin) of Whitchester. The old chapel was pulled down in 1779 when the present mansion was built.

Could there have been a bridge somewhere in the vicinity of the fields, providing access to the Close House Chantry?

It seems perhaps more likely that the origin of the field-name was rather more prosaic.

NORTHUMBERLAND WORDS. A GLOSSABY OF WORDS USED IN THE COUNTY OF NORTHUMBERLAND AND ON THE TYNESIDE. BY Richard Oliver Heslop. Published for the English Dialect Society(1893-84).
Volume 1 and Volume II

KILLY-COUPER, an upset heels over head.

Killicoup, a somerset [archaic spelling of somersault].

Killie is a plank or beam placed on a wall so that one end projects a good way further than the other. A child then places himself upon the long end, while two or three press down the short end, so as to cause him to mount."— Jamieson.

John Jamieson (1759-1838), was author of the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, published in 1808, which was a landmark in the development of historical lexicography and in the study of the Scots language.

Jamieson's dictionary is available online.
Killie is given in the Supplement (Vol. 4; p.14).

This suggests that the field-names could be just a memory of a simple plank bridge, perhaps across a ditch or small stream. Maybe one that was prone to accidental upending.

It seems a little similar in this folk-lore origin of the name of Bays Leap farm.

If anyone has another theory or has more information, please let me know.