[Tom heaney]

Hey we’ve lived at Woodley field NE462nb for a year and half and have been renovating this place and been trying to find more history about it . I’m wondering if anyone has any info to share?
William Ritson who was prominent in the construction of the railways and did such schemes a ricarton junction , built it in his near retirement but can only find limited bits of info on the house. Would love to find the original architect plans, which families lived here , their stories etc and it was split into two houses in 1960’s and the servant buildings are separate dwellings now too.

[Jennifer Britton]

This is a very belated reply, so you may already have discovered some of this information.

Some early 20th century building control plans of Woodley Field are held at Northumberland Archives. You can search their catalogue here https://calmview.northumberland.gov.uk/

A newspaper cutting in our files states that the owner of the property in 1902 was a Mr E Sisterson.

If you have access to Findmypast you could try looking at their newspaper archives. I tried searching for Woodley Field (limiting the search area to Northumberland) and found that there was a fair number of interesting articles about previous owners. You could follow this up by searching for the owners on the various censuses also available on Findmypast, as well as the 1939 register.

If you don’t have access to FMP I think you will find that there is free access at Hexham Library.

Jennifer Britton

[Mark+Benjamin]

Hi Tom

The parents of a member of the Society, Michael Coates, were involved in the purchase of the property in 1961 and he has said he’s happy to help if he can. If you’d like to contact him, please email me at newsletter@hexhamhistorian.org and I’ll give you his phone number.

[Author]

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