Photograph Archive

Welcome to the HLHS Photo Archive

The archive contains a large number (6000+) of old and historic photographs of Hexham and the surrounding areas.

The archive has been categorised into a number of Choices pages, which lead to the Gallery pages displaying the photos. Gallery pages show thumbnail images of a photo, hovering over which will display information about the photo. Clicking on any thumbnail will display the image in its full size. More information here.

When you go to a gallery page, the thumbnails will display in a “lazy” fashion, that is, as needed when you scroll down a page. Galleries with a large number of photos may take some time to display.

Hexham has the greatest coverage, with 15 Choices pages and well over 150 Gallery pages to explore.

Just want to see the recent aditions to the Photo Archive? Check out the New Additions Gallery.

Some random photos ….

c1932: Hexham & Tyne Green. Hand tinted; looking S across river, landing stage and boathouse, town view and Abbey centred in distance

1905: Benson Monument, Hexham. Tinted; looking N

c1865: Abbey looking N, old graveyard being cleared to make Beaumont Street, man in top hat seated on tree stump

c1960: Cattle Market looking NE to Priestpopple, Midland Bank on Fore Street

c1960: Bus station in Commercial Place (off Priestpopple) looking N, Charlton's AEC ex-London Transport bus

Pre-1886: St Mary's Chare looking N into Old Church, No 1 Grapes Inn pub on left, No 4 Meal Market on right

c1900?: Battle Hill, Hexham. Sepia; looking W from Cattle Market, cattle emerging at Eastgate, horse drawn carts, No 1 Eastgate Cattle Market Post Office, No 4 Cattle Market Jameson's Tea and Dining Rooms, No 2 Verraes Tea Rooms (?), No 1 Old Grey Bull pub

c1920: Settlingstones mine, Ellen shaft headgear (Ellen shaft served as alternative exit and ventilation downcast vent)

Archive Catalogue

All of the images in the archive are catalogued, with links to the images together with any additional details there are about each image. You can search the catalogue to find images of particular interest.

Copyright

All images are Copyright © Hexham Local History Society 2021, unless otherwise indicated in the Archive Catalogue entry for an image. Images can ONLY be used for personal research. Any commercial use of an image is forbidden. Please contact the HLHS if you wish to make use of an image.

Gibson Collection

The Gibson Collection of photographs is held in the Northumberland Archives. To get to a list of links to Gibson photographs of Hexham, click here.

The full Gibson Collection catalogue is here.

Acknowledgements

We are particularly grateful to the following people and organisations who have donated the main images for this archive.

Colin Dallison (pictured left) made a major donation of his collection of over 4000 postcards and slides. Other contributors include: Hexham Library; J Britton; K Doonhan; M Benjamin; M Wooldridge; S Sobell; Y Purdy; United Automobile Services collection (courtesy The Bus Archive); H Dixon.

Scanning slides and photos, and provided initial information about each image, was undertaken by a number of people: Mark Benjamin and Andrea Cameron for Colin Dallison’s collection; Mark Benjamin, Ian Hancock, Terry Eccles and Peter Rodger for photos from Hexham Library; Jennifer Britton for images from her postcard collection.

The overall Photo Archive and the information on each image was assembled by Pete Lee.

If you have any photographs or digital images of Hexham and surrounding areas that you are willing to donate to the HLHS Photo Archive, please get in touch with us – details on the Contacts page.

Do you have a question or additional information about a particular image? Or have you spotted an error? If you have, why not use the HLHS Photo Archive Forum to get in touch by clicking on the button.