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

Following the excitement with the find of a section of Hadrians Wall on the Town Farm development site we now report on a new archaeology find, close to the eastern entrance.

We must await the full archaeology report but it is clearly a medieval or post-medieval corn-drying kiln, very simillar to that built into the conserved section of Hadrian's Wall, slightly further east, across Towne Gate.

The excavation was undertaken by an archaeologist from Wardell Armstrong, and my photos taken, with careful regard for health & safety, through the wire fence at the east entrance to the building site.

The location of the kiln is likley to lie close to, but just to the north of the line of Hadrian's Wall, which hadn't been visible in this area of the site.

Behind the circular part of the kiln in the foreground is a deep fire-pit bounded by large  masonry on the south side.

LINK

Wardell Armstrong - Tulip Mews, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland. Watching Brief Report (2020).

Photos below, taken in June 2017, are of the old Town Farm (Tulip's Yard) before demolition of the old buildings.

Photos below of the revealed section of Hadrian's Wall taken by Bill Pointer 8th March 2019.

Those who have followed developments of the former site of Town Farm, later Tulip’s Haulage Yard, on the East side of the village will have seen in the past weeks, the old, derelict buildings of the farmstead demolished, a new section of Hadrian’s Wall briefly found and cleared, and the site prepared for the building of five new bungalows.
 
I don’t know much about the early history of Town Farm but have speculated that it was in place in 1750 requiring the slight adjustment of General Wade’s Military Road from using the line (and foundations) of Hadrian’s Wall, west from Great Hill. This led to the preserved section of the Wall otherwise largely destroyed and covered by the road. This road, the first properly constructed road in Northumberland since Roman times, became the Newcastle to Carlisle Turnpike and later the A69, before it was abandoned and the bypass constructed.
 
Beside the old road, below the retaining wall of the Town Farm site, still stands a milestone recording a distance of 7 miles from Newcastle’s West gate. It is probably one of the original milestones of the turnpike road from around 1780.
 
The original farm may have adjoined the old buildings, incorporating both farmhouse and barn as one long building. The two-storey farmhouse still standing on the north side of the old road, previously Four Winds and now Glanville House, was probably a much later addition.
 
At one time, like much of the village, it was owned by the Clayton family. The farmer in 1901 was William Stephenson who lived in the farmhouse with his wife Sarah and six children. William had been born at Rudchester and was nephew of William Stephenson who founded Throckley Brick Works and whose son, Sir William Haswell Stephenson of the Throckley Coal Company was seven times Lord Mayor of Newcastle.
 
In 1901 a gamekeeper, George Charlton, lived in what is now Keepers Cottage. He died in 1931 and has a gravestone in St Andrew’s churchyard erected by Brigadier General Sir Loftus Bates of Heddon Hall ‘in memory of an old friend’.
 
There was a large fire at Town Farm in 1913 which destroyed buildings and livestock. It was fought by local people until the fire brigade arrived from Newburn, alerted by a youth on a bicycle.
 
In 1918 it was bought for £3000, along with many of the other village properties, by Sir James Knott who had a vision of turning Heddon into a model village. However, after the events of the First War and loss of his two sons, his interest in the village came to an end. Town Farm was Lot 1 in his sale of 1924. Town Farm, on the site of the Roman Wall, including 38 acres of old grass land, was sold to Adam and James Hedley for £2800. They were already faming Bays Leap, bought from the Claytons in 1918. James Knott retained the small field containing the currently preserved section of Hadrian’s Wall which he later instructed to be gifted to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.
 
Around 1927, Town Farm was rented from the Hedleys by William Ward Sanderson. He lived in the farmhouse and farmed the fields on the east side of the village, milking cows in a parlour at the farmstead, cutting hay on the site of the Roman Wall and running a local shop selling cigarettes and confectionary. The end of farming came when the land was sold for the building of the Vallum housing estate in the 1950s. The farm buildings became part of Tulip’s Yard, base for a successful haulage company.
 
The wall of the farm next to the old road sported adverts for the local shop and a Heddon on the Wall road-sign on a photo of army cadets resting on the grass below taken around 1950. Part of this photo was used on the album of The Eton Rifles by The Jam in 1979.
 
Demolition of the farm buildings in the past weeks and thorough archaeological excavation of the site has revealed the continuation of Hadrian’s Wall in two runs of large stones marking the lower course of its north face, and rubble core set in clay remaining below the old buildings. Most of the stones had been previously robbed and presumably reused elsewhere, perhaps including the church and even the buildings of Town Farm. Milecastle 12, known by measurement to be in this vicinity, hasn’t yet been found and may have been further west, perhaps under the garden north of Tank House. Similar remains of the Wall are known to exist below the tarmac of General Wade's road something that causes all sorts of problems for utility companies wanting to dig holes.
 
Cadwallader Bates in his History of Heddon published 1886: This mile-castle probably stood to the east of the pond, on the hill-top now covered with ruins of cottages. The Rev. G. Bowlker, vicar of Heddon, has heard that the people who lived in these cottages, in digging a hole in front of them for burying a horse, came on old foundations and what they described as a grave-stone with letters on it. This they promptly broke up.
 
Nothing has been agreed to date but interest has been expressed in the village obtaining at least some of the Hadrian’s Wall stones if they are not wanted elsewhere, perhaps to enhance the area around the Victrix sculpture, letting us put the centurion close to a little part of the fabric of the original Roman Wall.

Map rendering provided by houseprices.io free to use under Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY 4.0

The sections below are taken from:
Wardell Armstrong - Tulip Mews, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland. Watching Brief Report (2020).

In addition to remains associated with Hadrian’s Wall, the watching brief also identified a well preserved stone‐lined kiln with associated firepit and flue. The kiln was initially considered to be associated with the Roman activity at the site, but the recovery of several sherds of medieval pottery from the feature (the only medieval pottery recovered anywhere during the watching brief) and its location on the northern side of the Wall has highlighted that it relates to a later phase of activity, probably the 14th or 15th century. Apart from the recovery of oak charcoal, primarily from the firepit, no indication of use of the kiln was identified, although it is possible that the feature was used as a corn drying kiln similar to the medieval kiln built into the extant section of the Wall immediately to the east of the site.

LINKS

The Wall at Heddon

Heddon History - Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall on Tyneside (pdf)

Hexham Courant - 19th March 2019