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
    • Prehistory
    • Hadrian's Wall >
      • Vallum excavation (1893)
      • Hadrian's Wall excavation 1926
      • Wall ditch, Bays Leap (1958)
      • Hadrian’s Wall: Archaeological research by English Heritage 1976-2000
      • Throckley & Heddon entanglements
      • WallWatch
      • English Heritage (2020)
      • Wardell-Armstrong Archaeolgy Reports
      • Historic England Archives
    • 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
    • Community 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)
    • Butterfly Garden (1999)
    • 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)
    • Hadrian's Wall discovery (2019)
    • Tulip Mews (2020)
    • Mike Furlonger
    • Hadrian's Wall 1900 Festival
  • 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
    • Harry Murray
  • 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
    • Blackburn (1938)
    • Clark (c.1963)
    • History of Church (1968)
    • Boundary Commission Report 1984
    • Village Atlas 2022
  • Walks
    • Walks 2
  • Blog
  • Contact us
  • Links
  • What's new
  • Site search
  • Past & Present
  • Photo of the Month
  • Place Name Studies
    • Meas & Meres
    • OS Name Books: Elsdon
    • OS Name Books: Allendale
    • OS Name Books: Cheviot Hills
    • OS Name Books: Other Parishes
  • Heddon 3D landscape

Stephensons of Throckley

10/6/2016

15 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
15 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

Town Farm, Heddon on the Wall

15/12/2011

10 Comments

 
The photographer, Caroline Briggs, got in touch recently with a link to her blog, entitled, Picturing the Past which refers to an old postcard she had acquired. She asks if the house could be Town Farm in Heddon.
Picture
Postcard courtesy of Caroline Briggs.
_The postcard was franked 19 April 1907, posted in Heddon-on-the-Wall and addressed to Mr J W Stephenson of Ravensworth Road, Dunston.
Picture
We don't have an old photo of the Town Farm farmhouse on this site, although there is one taken close to its former farmyard off Towne Gate here. The farmhouse itself was located north of the old A69 road (now disused),  and the house in that location was recently called 'Four Winds', but is now, 'Glanville House'. It has been much changed and modernised over the years.

The map here from 1897 clearly shows the shape of the porch on the south side of the building. The house is not easily seen from the road but the porch and upper central window in my photo taken from the public road (below) appear to be a good match. If it is the house, the other windows must have been widened.
Picture
_Caroline tells us that one of the signs on the wall of the house reads ‘New Milk & Soda’. This fits with one of our Memories.

Alec and Winnie Watson gave the following description:

The house (now called Four Winds), opposite Towne Gate, was Town Farm. That farm owned the buildings now in Tulip's Yard which were the farm buildings. Alec would go along to Town Farm with a milk can to collect the milk.

Caroline found out that Mr J W Stephenson, the recipient of the postcard, was born in 1869 in Newburn, and had 11 siblings. The youngest of these were still living with his parents, Sarah and William Stephenson, at Town Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, in 1901. She speculates that it his parents and younger siblings that are posed for the photograph outside Town Farm farmhouse, and she could well be right in that too. Caroline told me that she pieced this all together from  the 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 census.

The brief message (given in full on Caroline's post) is signed 'Cissie'. Although this was often applied as a nickname to several different girl's names, it is often applied to Sarah and that would fit too, inviting her son to visit on Sunday. Caroline found out that John also had a sister called Sarah, who would have been about 27 when the postcard was sent. Perhaps she was Cissie...? The only thing we don't know is what they had for Sunday dinner.

A great feat of detective work and a very interesting find. Many thanks for getting in touch, Caroline.

Read More
10 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Andy Curtis

    Archives

    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    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
    Archaeology
    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
    Hexham
    Hidden Chains
    Houghton
    Howick Hall
    Hunting
    Iron Sign
    Isaac Jackson
    John Grundy
    John Smith
    Knott
    Landscape
    Landslide
    Lead Works
    Lemington
    Lidar
    Lindisfarne
    Maritime
    Meetings
    Military Road
    Mill
    Monument
    Newburn
    Newcastle
    Newcastle Assizes
    News
    North Lodge
    North Shields
    Northumberland
    Northumberland Records Office
    Old Middleton
    Oral History
    Ouseburn
    Outings
    Photography
    Pit
    Place Names
    Place-names
    Ponteland
    Ports
    Postcards
    Prehistory
    Pubs
    Quarries
    Railways
    Redesdale
    River Tyne
    Rock Art
    Roman
    Sadler
    Sanderson
    Schools
    Seaton Delaval
    Ships
    Shot Tower
    Slave Trade
    Songs/Poems
    Spearman
    Stagecoach
    Stained Glass
    St. Andrews
    Stephenson
    Swann
    Tea Robbery
    Throckley
    Town Farm
    Transportation
    Trinity House
    Victorian Panorama
    Walbottle
    Walk
    Water Supply
    William Brown
    Williamson
    Woodhorn
    Ww1
    Ww2
    Wylam
    Yetholm

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.