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The Blue Bell

27/10/2013

5 Comments

 
Picture
Houghton Moor Cottages at Blue Bell. Photo A Curtis (2013)
Picture
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.
Picture
Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury - Saturday 25 September 1847.
The above sale advertisement shows that in 1847 there was one dwelling house and eleven cottages close to the Blue Bell Inn at this location.
Picture
OS 1:2500 (1859).
The first edition OS map above indicates the presence of a toll gate here on the turnpike road but the actual location of the inn is unclear. The road from Corbridge to Heddon-on-the- Wall was converted into a turnpike in 1800.

Picture
OS 1:2500 (1897).
The situation is clearer on the 1897 map. The inn is no longer named but the hamlet is still called Blue Bell. All the earlier buildings close to the north side of the road have been demolished and replaced with the terrace of three houses that stand today, located further back from the roadside. It is possible that the most easterly of the original row of houses here was the inn.

Two rows of four cottages are still shown on the south side of the road, west of the junction. Three more that made up the west side of the courtyard on the 1859 map have gone. Perhaps the original eleven here are those referred to in the 1847 sale.
The newspaper article below shows that one proprietor of the Blue Bell went missing in 1780. In 1834, the proprietor of the Blue Bell Inn at Houghton Moor House is named as Hannah Nesbit.
The catalogue entry for one of the the Blackett Wylam Colliery records at Woodhorn (Account, no.24, working charges for Haugh Pit & Peggy Pit, ZBK/A/1/83) apparently details the rental of cottages at Houghton Moor from the Houghton Iron Company in November 1838. However this is the only mention I have seen of such an occupation in this location.
The Blue Bell Inn receives a mention in the Newcastle Journal on Monday 30 September 1867 (page 2 column 4) in a report of the Moot Hall Petty Sessions held on the previous Saturday (28 September 1867)  before Messrs GC Atkinson, R B Sanderson , A H Bell and Capt. Blackett,

John Elliott (29) a stone mason from Stamfordham was charged with stealing £2 15s from James Henderson at the Blue Bell Inn, Heddon on the Wall. The landlady at the time is named as Mrs Hepple. Her husband and a servant girl were also present at the time. The policemean who took Elliott into custody is named as PC A Rutherford.
Picture
Newcastle Courant 20 May 1780 p.1
5 Comments
Rev Mike Brotherton MBE BD
28/12/2014 09:50:55 am

I am trying to find out about my great grandmother Margaret Tearney was born in Wylam in Blue Bell in 1871 - her husband was John Gair of Newburn and was a local miner. Was the Blue Bell a inn? Any info would be gratefully received.

Reply
Louise Hoare
23/9/2015 04:10:53 pm

My Great Grandmother was Margaret Tearney married to John Gair, she was my father's grandmother and brought him up. Looking at your name I believe your grandmother was Meggie Jackson and your parents Beryl and Billy Brotherton. I was at their wedding and gave the bride a lucky horseshoe. My father joined the RAF around 1956/57 and we moved away. It would be lovely to hear your family news. I have done quite a lot of family research and know a little about Margaret Tearney but not as much as I found out about the Gairs.

Reply
Cynthia Gordon
6/2/2016 08:18:06 pm

my husbands 3x great grandparents
Alexander and Sarah Gordon lived
in Blue Bell in 1847,would anyone have any information on this
Thank you Cynthia

Reply
Bridget
16/8/2017 02:36:17 am

Hello Cynthia, I was looking up the location of the Blue Bell in the Township of Houghton and came across your comment with interest. I believe Alexander and Sarah Gordon were my Great Great Grand Parents. William their son, born 1847, was my Great Grandfather and his daughter Jane, my Grandmother. As it's so very easy to go down the wrong line, any information regarding Alexander and his family and of course whom your husband is more recent descended from, would be much appreciated. Bridget.

Reply
Robert Fairfax
15/2/2018 11:53:38 pm

Hello Mike and Louise

Margaret Tearney [1871-1936] - (I believe the original spelling of the surname is Tierney) - was the twin sister of John and the daughter of Patrick Tearney [c1838-1897]) and Mary Malia or Melia [c1840-1902] - both born in Ireland.

Margaret and her brothers John and Patrick were born in Blue Bell, Heddon-on-the=Wall. Her other siblings were born in Newburn,

If you are searching the 1871 Census online, Find My Past have the family name transcribed as Furness, on Ancestry it is transcribed as Lenny, with submitted alternatives of Finney and Finny. I have submitted a correction to both sites for the surname TIERNEY.

Hope this helps with your research.

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