Dukeshouse Wood Centre Gallery
This gallery contains photos of the Dukeshouse Wood Centre, or Kingswood Centre, to the south of Hexham off the Slaley Road.
This selection of photos, together with many other photos and documents, were given to the Society by Rona Miller, daughter of Ron Miller, headmaster at Dukeshouse from 1974 until his death in 1991. It is our hope to pass the entire archive over to Tyne and Wear Archives.
Brief timeline
1939 – National Camps Corporation proposed the building of peacetime educational holiday centres and (potentially) wartime evacuation centres, including one at Dukeshouse. Later that year the Dukeshouse site was taken over by Newcastle Education Committee, to be used as an evacuation centre for boys from Newcastle upon Tyne
1940 – the construction work was completed and the first evacuees arrived.
1945 – the war ended and the evacuees returned home.
Subsequently the camp was taken over by Gateshead Education Authority as their outdoor centre, which was visited and loved by many thousands of children.
2005 – Gateshead Council closed the centre as they were no longer able to maintain the cost of running it.
2007/2008 – The centre was bought and redeveloped as an outdoor education centre by Kingswood Learning and Leisure.
2024 – Kingswood Learning and Leisure went into liquidation. The centre was closed “with immediate effect” on 17th January 2025.
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Additional Resources
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Hexham Historian 31 (2021) “Dukeshouse Wood Camp School – the memories of Danny Welch”, who worked there from 1939 to 1977.
Hexham Historian 33 (2023) “Dukeshouse Wood Residential Camp School in the 1960’s” by Jennifer Britton.
Some photos and reminiscences can be found at: https://www.francisfrith.com/search?q=dukeshouse
Headmaster Ron Miller was a talented amateur cine cameraman. His films have been deposited at the North Eastern Film Archive, and some of them can be viewed here: https://www.yfanefa.com/search/results#/?query=dukeshouse&type=list&filterBy=Master_Record,%22Yes%22