Register on the website for free to get the ability to zoom into the photos, save photos to your profile, add pins with comments, and download low resolution images for personal use.

If you want to compare the aerial photos to contemporary maps have a look at:
OS Sheet NZ16SW - A 1:10,560 (Surveyed / Revised: 1940 to 1951, Published: 1951)
OS Sheet NZ16NW - A 1:10,560 (Surveyed / Revised: 1940 to 1951, Published: 1951)
OS Sheet Durham I.11 1:2,500 (Revised: 1940, Published: 1947)

The two arrays of huts (on west and east sides of the road) are apparently shown on the 1:10,560 (6" to 1 mile) map published in 1951.

Surviving prisoner of war tells of life on Tyneside
ChronicleLive: 1st January 2011

FORCED to live in a foreign land, Rudi Kuhnbaum made a life for himself on Tyneside.

Now, 65 years on from the Second World War, the former German prisoner of war is believed to be one of the oldest remaining of those who stayed on in Britain.

The 91-year-old was captured by British troops on his 25th birthday in 1944 and brought to a prisoner of war camp in the Tyne Valley at Wylam.

Rudi remained in captivity for five years, later being billeted to a farm in nearby Heddon-on-the-Wall.

When faced with the option of returning to Germany in 1949, Rudi had no choice but to remain in England.

His parents had disappeared without a trace in the Russian occupied East Germany and the country was in economic post-war turmoil.

But Rudi has fallen in love with the North East people and started looking for work as a pork butcher – the job his father had done.

He married Geordie lass Audrey in 1957 and the pair ran J. Sawyer Pork butchers on Shields Road in Byker for 30 years.

Rudi, now of Fenham, Newcastle, said: “When the war ended it wasn’t a case of not wanting to return to Germany – I couldn’t."

“My parents were dead although my two younger sisters had managed to flee into West Germany.”

Rudi and six friends, who have all since passed away, all settled in the North East.

He said: “My father was a pork butcher so when I went to the labour exchange I told them that was my trade. The people here were fantastic – the family I lived with in Heddon were great people."

“I remember when I started working on the farm the farmer asked me if I spoke English and I told him yes.
“Later that day we were moving some sheep and he said, ‘Gan on hinny shove the buggers doon,’ and I had no idea what he was saying. I thought I knew English but Geordie was a whole other language.”

Rudi was conscripted into the army and for two years fought on the Eastern Front. He witnessed the daily horrors of war and lived in awful and freezing conditions. He said: “The conditions were impossible. We had little proper clothing and the temperatures were so low."

When the snow melted in the spring it revealed piles and piles of dead German and Russian soldiers. “It was terrible. I couldn’t work out what all the slaughter had been for.”

After being wounded in the leg by a shell Rudi was brought back to France where he worked as an ambulance driver, before being captured by the British in 1944.

Rudi and Audrey, 82, have two sons Malcolm, 54, and Alistair, 37, and three grandchildren.

Camps for prisoners

OVER 400,000 German soldiers were held as prisoners of war in the UK.

Across the country there were 350 large camps housing the Germans and over 150,000 Italian soldiers. In the North East there were 15 camps, with Wylam, where Rudi Kuhnbaum was kept, home to around 300 men at a time.

After 1949 there were 25,000 men who stayed in the country with 796 recorded marriages to English women.

WW2 Peoples War - Wylam

Wylam Wartime Memories of Constance Smith
by newcastlecsv

"Then we got prisoners of war. The first lot were Italians and they built huts in the field opposite the church. That was quite a novelty. They didn't speak any English, so we couldn't talk to them, but they went to work on the local farms who had lost their young workers to the war effort, so they were very important. When the Germans came a lot of them spoke English so you could chat to them. One time they built their own model Bavarian castle, which created quite a bit of interest."

Tynedale at War 1939–1945
by Brian Tilley (2017)

There was an interesting development at Wylam, where German prisoners had their headquarters in Nissen huts while working on local farms. Among them were a carpenter and stonemason, who decided to augment the neat gardens they had created around the huts with something special. Over a period of just eight days, they built a mini castle in the gardens, with four towers, electric lighting and elaborate tapestries and carpets they had made themselves.

The three-foot high masterpiece was made using stones lifted from the bed of the Tyne by fellow prisoners, and the roof was made out of tins salvaged from the camp kitchens. Prisoners also constructed the furniture, embroidered tapestries and wove the carpet for the grand banqueting hail. Electricity was piped in from the Nissen huts and an ingenious homemade device allowed the front door to be opened and closed electronically. Wylam Castle even had its own ornamental fountain.

A discreet panel above the front door read ‘Built by German prisoners’ and it was intended as a lasting reminder of their stay in Wylam. Completed in 1947, it attracted hundreds of sightseers over the next two years, but some villagers were unhappy about this reminder of the war years, no matter how cleverly constructed. One day in May 1949, a lorry appeared on the site, and the castle was lifted from its foundations and driven away, never to be seen again ... although rumours persist it still has pride of place in someone’s back garden in the district!

Wylam Globe No 25 (Summer 1979)

Some random reminiscences of war-time Wylam, 1939-45 by Miss Frances J Foster of 5 Blackett Court.

"I remember wooden huts being put up on land between the church and the Institute (where Russell's house "Stone-cutters" now stands) for German and Italian prisoners of war. The POW's were employed to do jobs on farms in  the district. Local volunteers had to do stints of preparing breakfast for them and I remember that I had to opt out because I found it too hectic for me!

The German POW's built a very beautiful castle, on part of the land now occupied by Blackett's Cottages."

Wylam Globe No 26 (Autumn 1979)

A schoolboy's memories of Wylam in wartime

Miss Foster's recollections of the village during the Second War encouraged Stanley Blenkinsop, son of Mrs. Blenkinsop of 2, Ingham Terrace, and News Editor of the Daily Express in Manchester, to recall his memories of Wylam in wartime.

"At the end of the war Italian soldiers captured in the Western Desert were kept in wooden huts near the Parish Church. Some of them had been basket makers back home in Italy and they were to run a flourishing "business" in Wylam weaving baskets from willows cut at the riverside. My mother still carries hers made nearly 40 years ago!

Many of the Italians (who had huge patches of brightly coloured cloth sewn into their uniforms to show who they were) were freed on parole each day to work on local farms.

In the evenings they were also allowed out of captivity, though banned from the six local pubs (the present four plus the Bird Inn, next door to the Ship Inn, and the Stephensons Arms then at the end of Falcon Terrace).

But the Italians, the "Eyeties" as we boys called them, were allowed to visit the nearest cinema in Crawcrook. One night I was in a group of youngsters who were asked by some Italian P.O.W.s where the "ceenimar" was. We pointed in the opposite direction to Crawcrook, to Horsley, and off they set to walk it. We thought it was part of the war effort to obstruct the enemy! I often wonder how far they got before they discovered our hoax! Perhaps they even reached the Roman Wall which their forefathers built!

I remember, too, the model Bavarian-style castle six feet tall made by German prisoners who took over the wooden huts used by the Italians near the Church.

After the Germans moved away, the castle was bought from the War Department by a South Wylam family.

A mobile crane was brought in to lift the castle from its foundations. The lift began — but suddenly there was a loud crack and the castle shattered into thousands of pieces!"

A figure of eight, local history walk of 4.2 miles (6.7km) around the village of Wylam. You can view the walk on the ViewRanger web-site. A pdf of the walk with photos and other information can be downloaded below.

I have just received the following notification about the launch online of the Journal of William English.

"I am writing to announce that the website and journal of William English, (www.williamenglish.net) a miner originally from the North East of England who through hard work became a mining engineer in the gold mines of South Africa, is now live.
The website and journal covering the period 1875 to 1915 has been a project for William’s descendants, Hilary Norris and Larry Cunningham.
William found his own first job as a trapper when he left school at thirteen but after a week, ‘I didn’t like the mine, and wanted to leave, but my father said I had looked for the job myself and would now stay there. Well that fixed my destiny, but I know I should never have been a miner’.
William later followed in his father Henry’s footsteps and found work in the mines of South Africa. In 1899 he joined the Kaffrarian Rifles, fighting in the Boer War, and keeping a diary of each skirmish he took part in.
It is possible the journal was begun around this time. William’s life wasn’t solely defined by his work as a mining engineer although he details the materials, costs and dangers involved. He had many other interests, cycling perhaps being his greatest passion.
In transcribing William’s journal we have tracked the tragically short life of a self taught man in his own words. Additional material adds context and background information on the family. If you’d like to contact us please do so on [email protected] Larry Cunningham & Hilary Norris June 2021"

The homepage of the website is here: https://williamenglish.net

William English was born in Wylam in 1875 and died in 1915 at the Phthisis  Sanatorium at Modderfontein, near Johannesburg in South Africa.

His Journal probably written at a much later period of his life has been transcribed by his relatives and the website contains much more information about places and historical context.

Some information about Isaac Jackson, his clocks and model steam locomotives can be found in the blog articles on this site. There is also information about the song, Canny Wylam.

The illustration above of Wylam Bridge by R P Leitch was made for the 3rd edition of Samuel Smiles’ book, The Life of George Stephenson, published in 1868. It shows an industrial village with a coal mine and iron works along the northern riverbank and few buildings higher up in the village, including the colliery school built in 1854. Between the colliery pumping engine and the blast furnace stand the buildings of Wylam Mill, with another tall chimney.
 
Smiles described the village at he saw it.
“The colliery village of Wylam is situated on the north bank of the Tyne, about eight miles west of Newcastle. The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway runs along the opposite bank; and the traveller by that line sees the usual signs of a colliery in the unsightly pumping-engines surrounded by heaps of ashes, coal-dust, and slag, while a neighbouring iron-furnace in full blast throws out dense smoke and loud jets of steam by day and lurid flames at night. These works form the nucleus of the village, which is almost entirely occupied by coal-miners and iron-furnace-men. The place is remarkable for its large population, but not for its cleanness or neatness as a village; the houses, as in most colliery villages, being the property of the owners or lessees, who employ them in temporarily accommodating the work-people, against whose earnings there is a weekly set-off for house and coals.”
 
“There is nothing to interest one in the village itself.”
 
An article in The Newcastle Courant of 17 January 1874 entitled 'Our Colliery Villages' still described the village as “...  the very worst colliery village that we have yet beheld …'
 
The late 18th century had been a period of prosperity for Wylam – the colliery was thriving and an iron works, a lead-shot manufactory and a brewery were all established in the village. In the mid 1750s, Blackett, the colliery owner had had the Wylam Waggonway constructed to transport coal from the Haugh Pit to Lemington, originally using horse-drawn wagons, but in the early 1800s using some of the earliest steam locomotives including Puffing Billy and Wylam Dilly.
 
Benjamin Thompson established the Wylam Iron Works in 1835; one of its blast furnaces can be seen on the right, close to the location in Falcon Terrace where the school was built in 1909-10 (now the library and railway museum). Few remains of this industry can still be found, although many of the garden walls in Wylam’s Main Road are built of slag.
 
In 1825, he became a director of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and surveyed the route for the line, supervising the later stages of its construction between 1833 and 1835. At the iron works, locomotives were built for several years and in 1836 he was responsible for the erection of Wylam Bridge to link the village (and his works) to the new railway. It was originally a combined road and railway bridge with a timber deck supported on stone piers. It was funded by public subscription and tolls. This replaced a small ferry boat and earlier, often hazardous ford.
 
In 1864 the iron works closed. Four years later the colliery was closed, Haugh Pit below the river flooded for the last time. The brewery ceased to operate sometime in the 1870s. In 1876 Wylam Mill was modernised and converted into a steam mill. In 1931, most of its buildings including its chimney were destroyed by fire although the former Mill Stables is now the new Co-op store.
 
In 1876 the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway was completed with its arch-rib designed bridge at Hagg Bank, too late for much of Wylam’s industry. The track of this railway, serving a new station at North Wylam, was built along much of the course of the old waggonway.

The timber decking of Wylam Bridge was replaced with steel in 1897 when the bridge was no longer in use by rail traffic. It was again replaced in 1946. In 1960 the bridge still had an old tollhouse at the south end where the station car park entrance is today, although the company had erected a new one at the north end in 1899. The house sports a Puffing Billy weather vane on its dormer window.

Pedestrians were charged one penny to cross but an agreement between the landowner and the bridge company allowed free passage to some of the well-off residents. Opposition to the tolls led eventually to its acquisition by Northumberland County Council and it was freed from toll in 1936.

In 1942 strengthening and widening was carried out by the Ministry Of Transport so that it could be used by tanks. Flood damage and erosion forced replacement of two piers in the 1950s and the bridge was widened in 1959 to 24 feet, including a 6 foot wide path. A weight restriction of 9 tons was imposed in 1960, later raised to 10 tons. Following concerns over the safety of the railings following impact by cars, the bridge was closed for several weeks in 2007 for safety improvements.

The decline of industry in the 19th century led to a substantial change in the character of the village. By the 20th century Wylam was almost entirely a residential settlement, its transport well served by two railway stations.

The length of river bank east of Hagg Bank is known as Wylam Scars and it was here that work on the Newcastle-Carlisle railway began in 1831. The scene was delightfully illustrated by J.W. Carmichael in one of his famous views of this railway. This was the first cross-country line to be built and the first section, between Blaydon and Hexham, opened on March 9th 1835.

LINKS

Wylam History Walk on ViewRanger, free navigation app for mobile phone.

Wylam Globe Supplement to Issue 41 (June 1988)

Some photos of North Wylam Railway Station kindly supplied by David Payne.

Just came across this strange book. It can be read or downloaded on the Internet Archive website. It's subtitle is 'A Romantic Autobiography' and is set in Wylam and Heddon on the Wall. It may well be an autobiography of the author, James J Lawler, but then why is the hero of the story called James Raymond? I can find neither of these named individuals in local records. The author's preface only provides this clue (the emphasis is mine):

Although many recognisable events, descriptions and named people do occur in the book there are also many errors. They could of course be put down to a poor memory of past events and places. There is also much that smacks of fabrication and a huge desire to set the hero in the best possible light. If it is an autobiography it is certainly high on the big-headed side and there is little modesty.

Thanks to Philip Campo who contacted me about the blog, Canny Wylam, I have been able to see two examples of skeletal clocks made by the Wylam clock-maker, Isaac Jackson.

I also have to thank Philip Campo for the copy below of a local newpaper article recording the clock's restoration.

One of Jackson's clocks was for a time in Ovingham as it is mentioned in an article about the village in Archaeologia Aeliana, v5 p.347 (1861):
 
"These bring us into modem times; and we may venture to note the pleasure with which we view Mr. Bigge's admirable specimen of the clocks manufactured by a neighbouring pitman, Isaac Jackson, of Wylam. It is a marvel of accuracy."
 
John Frederic Bigge (1814–1885, 6th son of Charles William Bigge, Esq of Linden, Northumberland) was vicar of Ovingham & later Stamfordham. The Jackson clock mentioned in the report was presumably in the Ovingham Rectory.

A photo of the long-case regulator clock made by Isaac Jackson for Robert Stephenson's Locomotive Works in 1858 and now in the National Railway Museum is shown in Tale of the Model Steam Locomotive at Close House.

There has been much in the media regarding our national commemoration of World War 1 and I was loath this time to write yet another article on the same subject. However, I have been inspired by recent local events. Research on the names recorded on Wylam’s war memorials by Aubrey Smith, Philip Brooks and Roy Koerner was recently subject of a very professionally-produced and moving display in Wylam’s library (Falcon Centre), and followed up by a talk by Aubrey and Philip to the Heddon Local History Society at our last meeting on Monday 15th September.

If you missed the display, it is to be shown again in St Oswin’s Church (25 September to 11th October), Centenary Room of Wylam Institute (25th October to 1st November), and Wylam Methodist Church Hall (8th November to 9th November).

Wylam has three memorials: the cross on the village green, a plaque in the church, and a plaque in the old school (now Falcon Centre) with 21 names (‘the children of the village’). As well as the exhibition, a file has been produced on each of the 54 names recorded.

 Because of our own activities on the names recorded in Heddon, I was particularly interested in the sources of information the group had used. Available online, there are Census records and military records: those of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Soldiers Killed in Great War, Army Service Records (only about a third of which survived the Blitz), Medal Rolls, and Pension records. For those serving in the Northumberland Fusiliers or Durham Light Infantry, Battalion War Diaries were consulted at Alnwick Castle and Durham County Hall respectively. Although seldom recording names of individual soldiers, they provided insight about military events on the days the men were killed.

 Local information was mined from the Hexham Courant, available on microfiche at Hexham Library. In particular, the Wylam School Log Books provided a valuable source, due to the dedication of the headmaster, Ralph Brady, who with 37 years of service personally knew, and took an interest in his former pupils. Several of the names were augmented by family history research carried out by their relatives, often coming out of the blue from surprising distance, providing letters, photographs and memories.

Some intriguing stories came to light. One name on the old school plaque is Captain Frederick George ‘Dusty’ Dunn. From a humble background as son of a pit deputy, he became a pioneer in aerial warfare during the war, flying 17,500 miles in France. He was killed after Armistice Day, in May 1919, crashing as a test pilot at Farnborough in a prototype triplane. Roy Koerner, who unearthed much of the story is quoted in The Northumbrian (Issue 140 June/July 2014):

Another airman commemorated on the village green memorial is Gerald Lewis Paget. He transferred from the Northumberland Fusiliers to the 67th (Australian) Royal Flying Corps in early 1916 and was shot down on a mission in the Middle East.

Three of the Wylam men had more illustrious backgrounds to many of those recorded. The two sons of Sir James Knott, Henry Basil Knott and James Leadbitter Knott are shared on Heddon’s memorials and their stories are well known. The third, Algernon George Parsons, killed at Ypres in April 1918, was the only son of Charles Parsons, the industrialist of turbine fame who lived at Holeyn Hall.

Aubrey Smith got into this research to find something about the almost forgotten names he saw every day on the village memorial. The Heddon memorial records many fewer individuals, but the Wylam study will be a hard act to follow and we will need a little more time. The Wylam exhibition is well worth a visit. Take time to look at just a single random file of one the soldiers unknown to you and you will see that their stories can still resonate with us today.

2014 marks 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War.

One hundred years on, we are all connected to the First World War, either through our own family history, the heritage of our local communities or because of its long-term impact on society and the world we live in today.

From 2014 to 2018, across the world, nations, communities and individuals of all ages will come together to mark, commemorate and remember the lives of those who lived, fought and died in the First World War.

IWM (Imperial War Museums) is leading the First World War Centenary Partnership, a network of local, regional, national and international cultural and educational organisations.

Through the First World War Centenary Programme, a vibrant global programme of cultural events and activities, and online resources, the aims are to connect current and future generations with the lives, stories and impact of the First World War.

Here in Heddon on the Wall we would also like to put together some memories of this time and of those men from the village who gave their lives and that we remember to this day. The first of our articles appears below. It is intended to illustrate the calm before the storm, setting the tranquil scene in the locality of our village in the spring of 1914 using text from a local newspaper article.

The North East War Memorials Project records for that for the Heddon on the Wall district, including Heddon Colliery, over 200 men served in the Great War, 16 were killed.