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The Blue Bell

27/10/2013

Houghton Moor Cottages at Blue Bell. Photo A Curtis (2013)

One of the three cottages at Houghton Moor, west of Houghton and Heddon on on the Wall on the Old Hexham Road is called Blue Bell Cottage. It provides a memory of the Blue Bell Inn which stood either where the cottages are today, on the north side of the road, or with another former cluster of cottages that used to stand at the top of Blue Bell Lane, a narrow lane that leads south to Close House and Wylam.

Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury - Saturday 25 September 1847.

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Welcome Home Puffing Billy

18/10/2013

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This was a Poem of the Day by Anthony Todd of Howdon, Wallsend published in the Newcastle Journal. It nicely sums up events at the festival on Saturday 21st September in Wylam to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of Puffing Billy.

'Welcome Home Puffing Billy'
by Anthony Todd

Wylam on a sunny Saturday
People came from near and far
To experience culture and have fun
William Hedley's descendant Mark Beattie
Opened Puffing Billy day
With a friendly welcome for all
Local songs colour the air
Hexham Lasses and The Blaydon Races
Soaring away on the wings of The Red Kite
As the Stocksfield Stompers play
Their talent shining through
On this sunny day people are having fun
Coal and spoon races
Time trials by Wylam Brownies
Puffing Billy themed shopping trollies on the waggonway
The Elaine Milbourne Dancers
A juxtaposition of the contemporary with the age of steam
Strutting their stuff
Making dexterous moves
To songs from the musicals
And modern dance
Choo Choo Ch'Boogie and The Trolley Song
Everybody doing the locomotion
On this day to remember William Hedley
And Puffing Billy, displayed near the old railway
The star of the show
Puffing Billy as black as coal
Coal that put fire in metallic veins
That powered cogs, wheels and cranks
Steam moving through them
Bringing the locomotive to life
Expelling smoke like a dark, demonic fire-breathing dragon
Hadrian Cloggers dancing merrily
Accompanied by the accordion
Wooden clogs beating in time with the music
Keeping to the rhythm
Like the cadence of wheels on rails
When Billy worked on local waggonways
Hauling coal from Wylam to the Tyne
In chaldron waggons, chuffing puffing along
A marvel of engineering in its own time

Puffing Billy Festival, Wylam. Photo A Curtis (2013).

Links

Puffing Billy Festival - details
photos

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Memories of Wooden Waggonways and Wylam Dilly

6/10/2013

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The text below is a transcription of an article published in the now-defunct York Herald, on Monday 27 September 1875, page 6, col 2.

It recounts memories of some 40 or 45 years earlier about certain Tyneside wooden waggonways and the early steam locomotives operating on the Wylam Waggonway.

The author is unnamed but clearly had a close connection and interest in the events taking place around him. It is possible that the newspaper is merely recycling an article previously published in a more local journal but if so I have yet to discover the original source.

The Coal Waggon - Northumberland Archives Ref. ZMD 78/14.

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Tale of the Model Steam Locomotive at Close House

6/10/2013

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Isaac Jackson shows his model locomotive at Close House. Illustration by Bethany Whitehead (2013).

The illustration (above) for this story was kindly provided by Bethany Whitehead especially for this blog. Her work is showcased on Tumblr as Bethany Bluebell Illustration and is well worth a look.

The series of talks on early railways set up for the 2013 Puffing Billy Festival has been both informative and entertaining. However, the one on 25th September by Jim Rees entitled Hedley, Chapman and Isaac Jackson - who really did what? provided a gem of a story with a local interest that I just had to follow up.

Unlike my recent blog, Puffing Billy & the Heddon Balloon, where my early railway connection with Close House was somewhat fanciful, this story incorporates both real old news reports and cutting-edge research. That account also has one of Bethany Whitehead's drawings.

It's worth pointing out here that Close House always was, and still is, firmly in the parish of Heddon on the Wall, but is often referred to in the press as Close House, near Wylam, or worse, Wylam's Close House. This fact was pointed out in a letter to the Hexham Courant by Ian Armstrong, Chairman of Heddon Parish Council, published Monday, 1st October 2012.

I would like to thank Jim Rees (now at Beamish Museum) for providing much of the information I have used below. It was published in Early Railways 4 (Ed. G Boyes, 2010; ER4) as a followup section to his paper, The Sans Pareil Model: its purpose and possible origins, read at the Fourth International Early Railways Conference. The field of early railway research is a complicated and confusing one and any mistakes in the report below are my own, due both to my poor note keeping during Jim's lecture, and my even worse understanding of the issues and engineering.

Among the many things I learned in this talk, completely new to me, was about another Wylam man, Isaac Jackson, and his possible, mostly unsung, role in assisting in the local development of early steam locomotives that was taking place around him.

The 'Stephenson 1828' model, attributed to Isaac Jackson by Jim Rees. Early Railways 4 (2010).

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The Death of Old Bays Leap

3/10/2013

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From an article by Harry Murray published in Heddon Gossip, October 2013

Bays Leap Farm, Heddon on the Wall, was a very productive farm until 1957 when the Coal Board came along and bought the land for opencast coal mining. The farmhouse and buildings stood on the edge of the Heddon bypass.

Below the photo is a poem by Alan Duggan dated 1958 describing the estate before its demise.

Bays Leap Farm before open-cast mining c1900. Newcastle Central Library.

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The Blue Bell

Welcome Home Puffing Billy

'Welcome Home Puffing Billy'
by Anthony Todd

Links

Memories of Wooden Waggonways and Wylam Dilly

Tale of the Model Steam Locomotive at Close House

The Death of Old Bays Leap

From an article by Harry Murray published in Heddon Gossip, October 2013

Author

Archives

Categories

The Blue Bell

Welcome Home Puffing Billy

'Welcome Home Puffing Billy' by Anthony Todd

Links

Memories of Wooden Waggonways and Wylam Dilly

Tale of the Model Steam Locomotive at Close House

The Death of Old Bays Leap

From an article by Harry Murray published in Heddon Gossip, October 2013

Author

Archives

Categories

'Welcome Home Puffing Billy'
by Anthony Todd