Heddon-on-the-Wall Local History Society
  • Home
  • Calendar
  • Introduction
  • Where are we?
  • History Map
  • Timeline
    • Prehistoric
    • AD43 to 1599
    • 1600 to 1799
    • 1800 to 1899
    • 1900 to 1999
    • 2000 to 2099
  • Heddon's History
    • Hadrian's Wall >
      • Vallum excavation (1893)
      • Hadrian's Wall excavation 1926
      • Hadrian’s Wall: Archaeological research by English Heritage 1976-2000
      • Throckley entanglements
      • WallWatch
    • Six townships >
      • 1 Heddon township >
        • Heddon in the Middle Ages
        • Common Land
        • Middle Marches
        • Tithe Award
        • St Andrew's Church >
          • Stained Glass Windows
          • Churchyard
          • Monuments of church & churchyard (1991)
          • Monuments Page 2
          • Vicars of Heddon
        • Village property
        • Heddon Hall >
          • Sale of Heddon Hall 2012
        • Heddon Banks Farm
        • Frenchman's Row
        • Methodist Church >
          • Heddon Methodist Church Centenary 1877-1977
        • Men's Institute
        • Women's Institute
        • Welfare Field
        • Knott Memorial Hall
        • Memorial Park
        • Schools
        • River Tyne
        • Coal Mining
        • Quarrying
        • Water Supplies
        • Transport
        • Waggonway & Railway
        • Occupations from 1800
        • Miscellaneous
      • 2 West Heddon township
      • 3 East Heddon township
      • 4 Houghton & Close House township >
        • Close House
      • 5 Eachwick township
      • 6 Whitchester township
    • Rudchester
  • People
    • Sir James Knott
    • Cadwallader J. Bates
    • Richard Burdon
    • Hugh Sinclair (Tim) Swann
    • George Clark
  • Old Photos
    • Postcards
    • Old photos 1
    • Old photos 2
    • Old photos 3
    • Old photos 4
    • Old photos 5
    • Old photos 6
    • Old Photos 7
  • Old News
    • Letter from the Emigrant Clergy of Frenchman's Row (1802)
    • Alleged Brutal Murder at Heddon-on-the-Wall (1876)
    • Sad boat accident at Ryton (1877)
    • Coronation tree (1902)
    • 65 Years on a Ferry Boat (1929)
    • Come claim your kiss at Heddon (1953)
    • The Swan (1972)
    • Heddon WI (1987)
    • Church House (1966)
    • Happy return (1993)
    • Hexham Courant (1997)
    • Foot & Mouth (2001)
    • Remembrance Day (1996)
    • Remembrance Day (2016)
    • RAF at Ouston (2007)
    • Close House Golf Course (2009)
    • Heddon pupils celebrate British heritage (2011)
    • Roman Wall Forge (2011)
    • Diamond Jubilee (2012)
    • Auction of Bronze Statue, Close House (2012)
    • Heddon WI (2012)
    • Puffing Billy Festival (2013)
    • Heddon Village Show (2014)
    • View of the North (2014)
    • The Wall at Heddon (2014)
    • Heddon Village Show (2015)
    • War veterans singing send-off (September 2015)
    • Anglo-Saxon history (2014)
    • Heddon WI at 100 (2017)
  • Memories
    • Olive White
    • Betty Cockburn
    • Betty Cockburn - miscellaneous information
    • Isabel Snowdon
    • William & Winnie Watson
    • Edith Ward
    • Mark Parker
    • Jack Lawson
    • Winnie Spoor
    • P Reay
    • Mr and Mrs Hall
    • Peter Chapman
    • Elizabeth Elenora Eames
  • Other documents
    • Mackenzie (1825)
    • Bates (1886) >
      • Early & Roman
      • Townships
      • Heddon Church
      • Heddon & Houghton
      • Whitchester
      • Eachwick
      • West & East Heddon
      • Records
      • Addenda
      • Appendix A
    • History, Topography & Directory of Northumberland (Bulmer's) - 1886
    • History of Northumberland (1930)
    • Collingwood Bruce (1853)
    • Whellan (1855)
    • Post Office Directory (1879)
    • Prominent people in Heddon
    • Place names
    • Ad Murum
    • Archived documents
    • Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds (1826)
    • Census data 1801-1991
    • Historical Records 1888-1890
    • Knott Sale of Village Property (1924)
    • Extracts from Parish Council Records
    • Local colliery records
    • Clark (c.1963)
    • History of Church (1968)
  • Walks
  • Blog
  • Contact us
  • Links
  • What's new
  • Site search
  • Past & Present
  • Photo of the Month

Service for 'father of the coal trade'

8/4/2017

0 Comments

 
Church service on Sunday 2nd April 2017 in memory of William Brown, local mining engineer (1717-1782).
Picture
Hexham Courant, Friday 31st March 2017.
Picture
Norman font still in use today. William Brown was baptised here 300 years ago. Photo A Curtis (2015).

Read More
0 Comments

Big machines at Bay's Leap

15/12/2016

0 Comments

 
Photos and captions of the Bay's Leap open cast mining kindly provided by Alan Douglas of Throckley.
Yes, all was peace until one day,
A host of man arrived.
To dig black diamonds from the ground,
They wouldn't be deprived.

Machinery rolled in day by day,
Descending on the farm.
Tractors, scrapers, diggers too,
At first they caused alarm.

The months rolled by and now we see,
The surplus in a heap.
Towering high above the fields,
The death of old Bays Leap.
Above are the last three verses of The Death of Old Bay's Leap by Alan Duggan written in 1958. The rest of his poem, a nostalgic memory of the lost beauty, tranquility and productivity of Bay's Leap Farm at the onset of open cast coal mining, has already appeared on this blog.

Today we look at the other side of the coin. The photographic memories of one of those men who operated the machinery, dug out the coal and, at the end, restored the land back to farming.

Read More
0 Comments

Recovering memories

8/12/2016

0 Comments

 
The following poem was kindly sent to me by Mike Jones working with Averil Dawson, a resident of the care home, Grovewood House, which specialises in dementia care.
I work in conjunction with the two local Universities and several care homes seeking ways to assist those living with dementia. Part of my work entails using drama and the written word to address thoughts and feelings as expressed by those with whom I work.

Over the past month I've completed a poem which records the emotions of Avril on the day her weeping father dressed her ahead of the official closing of North Wallbottle Colliery. It was of course the day he lost his job. It had never crossed my mind that such an event could continue to impact so heavily across the generations but Avril opened my eyes to the reality with her thoughtful words.

She made me recognise that for some, as the poem concludes, "there will be no closure".


Read More
0 Comments

Heddon Colliery Powder Fund

31/7/2016

0 Comments

 
The following post by Swakopmunder appeared on the Mining Checks, Tallies, Tokens & Medals forum of the National Mining Memorabilia Association in 2009.
Picture
Heddon Colliery Powder Fund Check/Badge

Has anyone ever come across any UK mining explosives issuing tokens or similar? I know such tokens and checks were used in the US coal industry and had been told by at least a couple of very old English colliers that they remembered using something similar in their pits (pre 1947).

Recently I picked-up a 32 mm dia. brass embossed check which had around the edge of its obverse the legend HEDDON COLLIERY POWDER FUND plus two small pierced holes at 3 and 9 o’clock (like those on miners’ association checks/badges). The check did not have a stamped number in its centre like on a lamp or time check etc. instead this space was empty. The revere of the check had the embossed name and address of its maker in a circle. This maker was once a prolific producer of brass pub and other tokens in County Durham and Northumberland and also possibly operated a brass foundry.

Heddon Colliery closed c.1930 and was located 7 miles West of Newcastle-on-Tyne near to the pit village of Wylam (George Stephenson’s birth place). As far as I know this is the only check of any sort known from this colliery as none are recorded in Jeff Gardiner’s book of Durham and Northumberland Tokens.

Presumably the reference to POWDER on this check is to black or gunpowder used for blasting. The word FUND implies to me that there was some sort of communal fund that the miner’s paid into to purchase their powder. Bulk buying of powered or any other sort of mining consumables, by a group of miners, probably brought with it cash discounts which would be the incentive to joining such a fund/club. Possibly the check with its two distinctive piercings was issued by the system’s organisers as a type of membership badge to paid-up fund members, much as miner’s association checks/badges were used. The wearing of the badge would also act as a good advertisement for the scheme that presumably paid more financial discounts to the members the more miners were part of it.

The makers details are embosed in small letters in a circle in the middle of the check's reverse and read: Vandervelde & Co Makers, Newcastle on Tyne. No one knows if this famous north east token manufacturer produced colliery checks for the Great North Coalfield but I suspect that he did. Many of his other pub tokens etc. are also signed. I also have an outdoor type ornate brass head office wall plaque for the Pontop Coal Company that is also signed by him as the maker. I think it's likely he was well connected with the north-east colliery owners and probably did make a lot of the areas lamp checks.


0 Comments

Stephensons of Throckley

10/6/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
W Stephenson & Sons, Throckley. Poster for Thos. Pope of New York (c.1870).
Picture
William Stephenson & Sons, Throckley. The poster is in Italian to publicise the firm at the International Glass Exhibition, London 1862. Beamish People's Collection NEG5733.
Picture
Stephenson brick, Close Lea, Heddon on the Wall. Photo A Curtis (2011).
Picture
Mr William Stephenson had established a brick and tileworks near the Maria coal pit by 1849, making firebricks, common bricks, quarls, field drainage tiles and soles. Early handmade firebricks were marked “W.S.& Sons, Throckley”, or “Stephenson, Newcastle”. In the 1920s a new grinding plant was installed and two new brick machine presses. The brickyard eventually had 34 Newcastle-type kilns.

In 1951, these kilns were replaced by a 20-chamber Staffordshire transverse-arch kiln, and produced six million bricks per year. A tunnel kiln was built in 1965 and the works modernised by the Northern Brick Company.

The Throckley yard is the only survivor of a group of 26 brickworks that were owned by the National Coal Board in 1947. In 1973, Gibbons (Dudley) Ltd took over the remaining nine brickworks and by 1977 only Throckley and Cramlington were still working.

A brickworks at Newburn was in existence from the 1850s to 1965. The buildings were demolished in 1979 and is now occupied by a recycling plant on the Newburn to Walbottle Road.

The Throckley brickworks is now owned by Ibstock plc, registered in Ibstock Leicestershire.
http://www.penmorfa.com/bricks/england20a.html

Picture
Isabella Coke Ovens made with Stephenson bricks. Photo A Curtis (2016).
Picture
Locally made bricks on pedistal for information board, Isabella Coke Ovens. Photo A Curtis (2016).

Read More
2 Comments

William Brown book launch

28/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Thursday 5th May 2016
Mining Institute, Neville Hall, Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, 6pm.

Short lecture on the importance of William Brown by the author, Les Turnbull, followed by sales of his new book, The World of William Brown - Railways, Steam Engines & Coal Mines, with book signing and a drink in the library.


Free event, all welcome.

Picture

Picture
Author, Les Turnbull, at Mining Institute book launch. Photo A Curtis (2016).
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Local Accidents

21/12/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Fatal accident on Wylam Waggonway concerning William Weddell. Shields Daily Gazette - 17th Apr 1862.
Accidental death of William Weddell of Gallowgate, Newcastle, labourer following accident at Heddon Banks on the Wylam Waggonway in 1862.
Picture
Curious result of drinking whiskey. Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Tuesday 09 July 1878.
Death in 1878 of a boy, Henry Harding at Heddon on the Wall after drinking whiskey with two friends.
Picture
Dreadful accident at Heddon Quarry. Three men injured. Hartlepool Mail - Monday 24 March 1879.
Three workmen severely injured in gun-powder accident at New Quarry, Heddon on the Wall in 1879: Henry Garnett (Walbottle), Hutton Robson (Heddon), and a man named Andrew living at Blue Bell.
John Waddell (1828-1888), described as the operator of the New Quarry at Heddon, was a Scottish-born railway contractor based in Edinburgh.

He ran the enterprising and respected firm John Waddell and Sons and went on to complete many routes during the rise of the railways across England during the late 19th century, especially for the NER.

Notable examples of his work include the rebuilding of Putney Bridge in London (1882), the Scarborough and Whitby Railway, completion of the Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway and the Mersey Railway Tunnel.
Picture
Fatal accident at Heddon Colliery. Newcastle Courant - Friday 24 July 1885.
Picture
Fatal accident at Heddon Colliery. Newcastle Courant - Saturday 23 December 1893.
Two reported fatal accidents at Heddon Colliery: Robert Simpson (25) conveying clay from colliery to brickworks by pony in 1885, and J Jameson (stoneshifter) in 1893.
Picture
Fatal accident at Heddon.. Newcastle Journal - Saturday 14 January 1911.
Robert Lowery, Deputy Overman at Heddon Colliery, killed by stonefall in 1911.
0 Comments

Beyond the Blaydon Races

26/11/2014

0 Comments

 
A new book on the collieries, waggonways and railways of Wylam, Heddon, Throckley, Newburn, Walbottle, Hollywell, Lemington and Callerton by Alan Clothier.
The area covered by this book is mainly that of the five waggonways delivering coal to their staiths on the River Tyne at Lemington from collieries at Wylam, Heddon, Throckley, Walbottle, Hollywell and Black Callerton. The main objective has been to place the early wooden waggonways fully in the context of their purpose and usage within the mining industry and continues with their development and the coming of railways up to the demise of the coal industry in that district. There is a more detailed insight into the multifarious activities of Colliery Viewers whose work it is felt has not always received the attention which it deserves. For much of this feature, the author is indebted to the wonderfully detailed work diaries of William Oliver held by the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. The opening date for the Wylam Waggonway has long escaped the notice of historians and many well-known writers have had it wrong; the author is pleased that his researches have at least narrowed it down to the year in which this event occurred. A Glossary of Terms used in the mining industry is also included as well as numerous plans and a Chronological Listing of Events.
Picture
Beyond the Blaydon Races by Alan Clothier (2014)
0 Comments

Walbottle Moors Waggonway

28/12/2013

0 Comments

 
Walbottle Moor Waggonway is known to have been in operation from 1769. This Waggonway ran from old pits north of Hexham Road past the location of Duke Pit in Walbottle down to coal staiths on the River Tyne at Lemington. The network is one of the last surviving examples of an 18th century waggonway to survive in Newcastle.

The system was still in use in 1860, using horses and employing 50 keelmen at the riverside staiths for transport down river.

This now disused network provides the village of Walbottle with picturesque paths allowing easy access to the surrounding countryside. These waggonways also have historic importance due to their connection with railway pioneer George Stephenson, who as a boy worked on them as a fireman and horse driver.
Picture
'Waggonways Walk' marker, Black Callerton. Photo A Curtis (2013).

Read More
0 Comments

Wylam Waggonway

9/6/2013

1 Comment

 
To focus my mind on the Wylam Waggonway for the Puffing Billy Festival I decided to create a map of the waggonway so that I could discuss some things that interest me along its route. As always I am particularly interested in finding clues to the past which can still be seen today.

This will be an ongoing blog and I will add to it as I feel inspired.

View Wylam Waggonway in a larger map
Key to map above:
Red: North Wylam, Newburn & Scotswood Railway where it diverges from the route of the former Waggonway.
Blue: approximate route of Wylam Waggonway (1859 Map)
Green: Mineral line (single track) closely parallel to railway line (double track) - possibly on the original waggonway line.
Purple: Early Throckley Waggonway (1859 map)
Pink: Later Throckley Waggonway (1897 map)
Yellow: Throckley Isabella Mineral Railway (1897 map)
Light Blue: North Walbottle Waggonway (1859 Map)
Yellow Pin: Named feature

Read More
1 Comment
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Andy Curtis

    Archives

    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011


    Categories

    All
    Agricultural Engineering
    Barrow
    Bays Leap
    Beamish Museum
    Beer
    Beer-mat
    Bewcastle
    Books
    Border Line
    Brewery
    Brown
    Cabinetmaker
    Charlton
    Cheviots
    Churches
    Civil War
    Clennell Street
    Close House
    Coal Mining
    Cullercoats
    Cumbria
    Eachwick
    Earl Grey
    Elswick
    Family History
    Fishing
    Fishwives
    Folkestone Warren
    Forth Banks
    Furniture
    Gardens
    General
    George Clark
    Gibson
    Goods Station
    Hadrian's Wall
    Harbours
    Heddon
    Heddon Hall
    Hidden Chains
    Houghton
    Howick Hall
    Hunting
    Iron Sign
    Isaac Jackson
    John Grundy
    Knott
    Landslide
    Lead Works
    Lemington
    Lindisfarne
    Maritime
    Meetings
    Military Road
    Monument
    Newburn
    Newcastle
    Newcastle Assizes
    News
    North Lodge
    North Shields
    Northumberland
    Northumberland Records Office
    Old Middleton
    Oral History
    Ouseburn
    Outings
    Ponteland
    Ports
    Prehistory
    Pubs
    Quarries
    Railway
    Railways
    River Tyne
    Rock Art
    Roman
    Sadler
    Sanderson
    Schools
    Seaton Delaval
    Ships
    Shot Tower
    Slave Trade
    Songs/Poems
    Spearman
    Stagecoach
    Stained Glass
    Stephenson
    Swann
    Tea Robbery
    Throckley
    Town Farm
    Transportation
    Trinity House
    Victorian Panorama
    Walbottle
    Water Supply
    William Brown
    Williamson
    Woodhorn
    Ww1
    Wylam
    Yetholm

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.