No. 102 Summer 2025
NEWSLETTER
Number
21Blank Line
102
Editor: Mark Benjamin
Tel: 07879 263848
newsletter@hexhamhistorian.org
Summer
Blank Line
2025
Thoughts from a Chair
Welcome to our Summer 2025 Newsletter.
Not much sitting in a chair and admiring the view over Hexham whilst soaking up the ample amount of sunshine we recently experienced, I’m afraid. The sun seems to highlight all the neglected corners and overdue tasks crying out for attention. However, there is a buzz in the air and that’s not just the insects in my flowerbeds.
We are so lucky to live in a Town with so much going on that we are spoiled for choice and of late, there has been a stream of Celebrity musicians and authors not only appearing in our various venues for Hexham Book Festival, but also enjoying the hostelries and other amenities Hexham has to offer. We even had a Royal visit from Queen Camilla and can look forward to a free three-day Bluegrass Festival at the end of July, rounding off another great series of Bandstand Sessions.
The Hexham East: Our Heritage project run by Number 28 with support from HLHS ended with a display of photos and memories at the Community Centre, where a series of short films created by the project was shown. Elsewhere in this Newsletter, you will find a QR code to scan which will take you to the archived films.
A small group of us from the Society got quite a buzz from the interaction of locals to our stall at Hexham Farmers Market where the display created by Jane & Sarah to promote the Society’s Archaeology Project, attracted people of all ages (further details below). Such enthusiasm bodes well for the success of the event later this year. All we need to order now is some of that May Sunshine and I will bring my own chair to one of the chosen gardens and happily watch someone else do the digging.
Dates for your diary
| Day | Date | Title | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Until Saturday | August 16th | Newcastle Prison: a history, 1828-1925 exhibition | Newcastle City Library, Level 6 |
| Tuesday | September 9th | The Wentworth Sisters: Scandal, loyalty, and betrayal in Georgian England - Ruth Dalton | Trinity Methodist Church Hall, Beaumont Street. Hexham NE46 3LS 7.30pm |
| Saturday/Sunday | September 13th/14th | Test Pit Excavations Weekend | See article below |
| Tuesday | October 14th | The 1650 Newcastle Witch Trails: what we mean when we say witch. Lucy Atkinson | Trinity Methodist Church Hall, Beaumont Street. Hexham NE46 3LS 7.30pm |
| Tuesday | November 11th | AGM & Vikings in North Northumberland: recent excavations at an early Medieval high-status site linked to the Great Viking Army – Jane Harrison | Trinity Church Hall, Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS. 7.30pm |
Hexham Historian distribution – Julia Draper
It has become clear over the last few years that the distribution system in place for the annual journal of HLHS, The Hexham Historian, is outdated. Members have changed, we have lost several of the wonderful people who volunteered to deliver copies by hand, and it’s clearly time for an overhaul. Thank you very much to those of you who have been willing to collect and deliver numerous copies over the years.
This is what we are proposing:
This year’s journal (HH35) will be available, in envelopes labelled with names and addresses, for local members to pick up at the September and October meetings. We are hoping that most of us will be able to collect our copies in this way.
Members who live at a distance will receive their copies by Royal Mail, as usual.
If you live locally but are unable to get to Trinity Church Hall for the meetings to collect your copy, or to send someone to collect it for you, you can opt to have yours posted; the cost of the package and postage (£3.50) will be added to your HLHS subscription for 2026.
If you have a particular problem with these arrangements, please contact me: secretary@hexhamhistorian.org or (01434) 603275
Out and about with HLHS – Mark Benjamin
Following our appeal at the last meeting, Wendy Dale very kindly stepped up with an offer to organise an outing to Jesmond Old Cemetery in July. Places filled up quickly, and a report on the visit will appear in the Autumn Newsletter. Whilst it would be ideal to have one person to co-ordinate such visits, there is no reason why three separate individuals cannot organise the traditional three summer visits in future years. If there’s somewhere that you’ve visited, or would like to visit, please have a word with any committee member – they’ll be delighted to support you in organising the trip!
Despite having engineered my escape from the committee, I am still called on to spread the word and have recently given my talk A history of Hexham in 6 controversies and a big stink to such disparate bodies as Tynedale Lions, several Women’s Institutes and even travelling as far as Morpeth to speak to the Morpeth Antiquarian Society. I have to say, the standard of cake-making in some WIs these days is not what I have been led to expect, with some that were – to my well-practiced eye, definitely shop-bought – my late mother-in-law would have been horrified!
Brady’s Crag – photo needed
The famous Battle of Heavenfield reputedly took place between Hadrian’s Wall and Brady’s Crag. Author Laura Hill is looking for a photo of the crag – can anyone help? Contact the Editor if you can.
Hexham and Area Community History & Archaeology Project: an update – Jane Harrison
We wrote in a previous newsletter about launching a new community history and archaeology project in Hexham. The response from the people of Hexham and around has been tremendous. An initial digital campaign, posters and a stall at Hexham Farmers’ Market on 24th May, have already led to dozens of people signing up their gardens as locations for mini-excavations, and/or themselves as volunteers to learn to excavate and record these test pits, and to clean, record and identify everything found in the pits.
Hexham Local History Society is supporting the first two trial weekends of test pit digging on 19-20 July and 13-14 September (during Heritage Open Days), and we will keep HLHS updated. Our intention is to dig 5 test-pits over the weekend (locations to be confirmed shortly) and we will need around 25 volunteers per day to work with our supervisory team.
We had a wonderful time meeting people at the Farmers’ Market: there clearly is great interest and enthusiasm from people across Hexham and of every age for finding out more about the past of their place. Link this to the fact we know so relatively little about the origins and development of Hexham, then we have a terrific launching pad for the project. We have also been talking to groups, schools and organisations who are keen to be involved.
95 people attended the Open Meeting on 2nd June in the Great Hall of Hexham Abbey and we now have around 30 potential sites and over 100 volunteers ready to get involved. There is still time to join them!
If you would like to join us and learn to excavate and record test-pits or to work on finds sorting and cleaning please let us know as soon as possible. Please specify whether you would like to excavate or would prefer to work with finds. You can volunteer for either Saturday or Sunday or both days. Please note that depending on numbers we may have to limit volunteers to one day each.
Children and young people are very welcome to volunteer, but must be accompanied by an adult if under the age of 16. No experience is necessary; all equipment and full training will be provided.
Any questions please email us on; canorthcic@gmail.com or register your interest to receive our emails on the website: www.cancic.com
Jane Harrison, Sarah Miles and Kathryn Murphy Community archaeology North CIC
Newcastle Prison: a history
Members may recall our esteemed HH editor, Helen Rutherford, giving a talk on the history of Newcastle Prison. The project that she, and the rest of the Newcastle Prison Project Team, have been working on has culminated in an exhibition at Newcastle Central Library which runs until Saturday 16th August: Newcastle Prison: a history 182801925: uncovering the forgotten history of the prison, the staff, the prisoners and its legacy in the city. A book of the same name is due to be published by Tyne Bridge Publishing in July.
Was your ancestor a foundling?
Almost 100,000 pages of records from the Foundling Hospital, England’s first home for babies who were unable to be cared for by their parents, have been made available to the public for the first time. https://coramstory.org.uk/the-foundling-hospital-archive/
Coram’s Foundling Hospital Archive is a unique and rich historical resource, known for its completeness. The archive spans the full history of the Foundling Hospital, from 1739 to 1954, when the residential school closed. The half-million records detail the lives of the 27,000 children in the Hospital’s care, their mothers’ circumstances, and the Hospital’s operation and guiding principles. In addition, the archive is a significant source for social history, women’s history, and regional English history, as well as the history of apprenticeships, medicine, textiles, and more. It is important to note that, although the Hospital was in London, women from throughout England came to leave their children there, including many from the North East
To make this important resource widely available, Coram has digitised and transcribed 405 volumes dating from 1739 to 1899. Nearly 100,000 pages, or 23% of the entire archive, can now be viewed online – for free. These records document the lives of 22,031 Foundlings and 823 London Parish children.
The Sandhoe Rifle Club – Helen Rutherford
In the Newcastle Journal of 9 June 1862 (as noted by Yvonne Purdy in the Hexham History Society Newsletter, Spring 2017), the newly formed Sandhoe Rifle Club, under the patronage of Rowland Errington, Esq., was first introduced. By October of that year, the club held its inaugural annual prize shoot at its range at West Oakwood (Birky Burn).
Conveniently located near the roads linking Hexham, Acomb, and Sandhoe, the range had been developed from rough ground into an impressive facility. It featured a stone clubhouse, a promenade, and two target lines—one 600 yards and the other extending to 1,000 yards—backed by wooded slopes and natural barriers.
The event attracted sixty-three competitors. Four prizes were offered: a silver cup donated by Miss Stanley Errington, a Whitworth rifle from Mr. Errington, a purse of gold, and a monetary award. The first prize was won by Matthew Leadbitter, a tenant of Mr. Errington, with a score of 25 points.
Despite bitter winds and cold weather, the event proceeded smoothly. A tent provided refreshments, and the club’s band performed throughout the day. The silver cup was presented by Miss Errington, and the gathering concluded with formal thanks and prize presentations.
The trophy awarded to Mr. Leadbitter is pictured here. This image is courtesy of David Copland, a dealer in trophies and medals, who found Yvonne’s article when researching the cup and sent this image for the newsletter.
Lights, Curtains, Action! – Clare Lindsay
Hexham Local History Society has already recognised the significance of the Forum Cinema and has some wonderful photographs of the cinema in our archive. You will recognise what an important part the cinema has played and continues to play in the history of Hexham and its wider community.
The Forum was first opened to the public in 1937 by Brigadier-General Loftus Bates. The opening programme featured ukelele star George Formby in Keep Your Seats Please, the ‘technicolour picture’ Echo Mountain, and the colour musical Lovers’ Paradise.
Publicity at the time described it as “Hexham’s New Wonder Theatre’, ‘from every stand-point a Modern Theatre De Luxe’ with ‘Gorgeous Auditorium Lighting’ and ‘Handsome Curtains’.
Unfortunately, these features are now in serious need of repair and restoration. The lights require specialist cleaning and, in places, accurate replacements. The curtains need total refurbishment. The total bill for this work was estimated at £25,000. Following a very successful fund-raising effort, The Lights! Curtains! Action! Campaign, run by the Forum Cinema Supporters Association, has surpassed its original target and wants to thank everyone who has given so generously.
The Association’s Chair, Clare Lindsay said, ‘We would like to say a massive THANK YOU!! to everyone who has so generously donated. Over three hundred individual donors, plus local businesses, charitable trusts and foundations have helped us achieve our target to enable the cinema to restore and repair its auditorium.’
The work will be taking place over a quiet time in the cinema’s schedule and Cinema Manager Clare Mwande said, ‘We are looking very much to restoring the Art Deco magic to our auditorium and welcoming our guests to a very special experience where a visit to the cinema is as much of the enjoyment as the film
Dukeshouse Wood Camp School: The Ron Miller Archive – Jennifer Britton
Towards the end of the 1930s, concerns were growing over the well-being of children living in urban areas. Too many were growing up with little experience of clean air, the countryside, and a poor understanding of nature. The National Camps Corporation was set up in 1939 to try and address this predicament. Of the thirty-one camps established throughout England & Wales, two sites in Northumberland were chosen; Bellingham and Hexham.
For 80 years, Dukeshouse Wood camp provided school children from all over the North East an adventure retreat until it closed earlier this year. Although refurbished and modernised in 2008, the original cedar wood huts that housed the dormitories, sick bay, dining hall, assembly hall, games room, classrooms, and ablution block remained.
A few years ago the Society was given a collection of documents, cine films and photographs relating to the history of Dukeshouse Wood Camp school. These had been collected by Ron Miller, headmaster of the school from 1974 until 1991, and were donated to the society by his daughter Rona.
We were delighted that the cine films were accepted by the North Eastern Film Archive who found them to be of excellent quality, despite their age. Two of the films can be viewed here https://tinyurl.com/aafynaut
Amongst the written material was an account of the early history of Dukeshouse by Danny Welch, who worked there, originally as a handyman and eventually as site foreman, from 1945 until 1977. This account was transcribed and appeared in Hexham Historian 31 (2021).
Other material, mainly from the 1960s, gave an invaluable insight into the workings of the Camp School at that time, and formed part of an article in Hexham Historian 33 (2023).
Finally, a selection of some 40 photographs from Ron Miller’s personal collection have been scanned and are are now available to view in the Dukeshouse Gallery on the HLHS website https://tinyurl.com/4kns9p2c
Given the close association over very many years between Dukeshouse and Gateshead Council it was thought best if the archive was offered to Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums for safe keeping. We were delighted that they accepted the offer and the archive was handed over to them in April 2025.
East End Heritage Project – Grace Dunne
Flavinus (again) and other aspects of the Abbey’s historical fabric – Chris Britton
Mark Hatton’s piece on Flavinus in the last issue leads me to draw members’ attention to an excellent booklet on the subject by Anneke-Susan Hackenbroich which was written to coincide with the Hadrian’s Wall Cavalry Exhibition in 2017. This was on sale in the Abbey for several years until stocks ran out. At that point we approached her to see if she would allow it to be reformatted as one of the Abbey’s Treasures of Hexham Abbey Series of Booklets.She readily agreed, and copies are available in the Abbey for a mere £3.
Under the aegis of the Abbey’s Conservation Team (now numbering some 19 members; enthusiastic amateurs and professionals alike) Dr Louisa Campbell, from Glasgow University, has recently studied Flavinus with modern equipment and discovered much original colour in the cracks. Her report is eagerly awaited, and it may be that the coloured replica at Corbridge will need a repaint!
You may be interested to know there are now 13 titles in the Treasures of Hexham Abbey series and more in preparation. Current titles in the Treasures of Hexham Abbey Series of booklets:
- Painted Panels – Chris Britton (expanded and updated 2nd edition 2024)
- Stained Glass – Chris Britton
- Heraldry – Chris Simmons
- Choirstalls and Misericords – Chris Britton
- Flavinus – Anneke-Susan Hackenbroich
- Saxon Crypt – Richard N Bailey
- Pulpitum – Chris Britton
- Roofs and Bosses – Chris Britton
- Etheldreda and Wilfrid – Colm O’Brien
- Organs – Chris Britton
- Chantry Chapels – Chris Britton
- C C Hodges – Chris & Jennifer Britton
- Anglo-Saxon Stone Crucifixion Panel – Richard N Bailey
- Saxon Gold, Silver & Coin Hoard – Richard N Bailey (in preparation)
- Architecture – Chris Britton (in preparation)
Recently published books of interest
Frodsham, P; Green, M & Finch, G
The North Pennines: from pre-history to present
(Archaeopress, 2025) – ISBN 9781803278513 – £48.00
A full review of this title will appear in our Autumn Newsletter
The first comprehensive survey of the archaeology of the North Pennines, from Mesolithic to modern times. Traces of 10,000 years of human activity survive today, including flint scatters at Mesolithic campsites, earthworks of prehistoric and later settlements and field systems, and extensive remnants of the post-medieval ‘miner-farmer’ landscape.
Sometimes described as ‘England’s last wilderness’, the area is a vast but relatively little-known swathe of the English northern uplands. It is a land of contrasts: lush green dales, high windswept moorland, purple with heather in late summer, turbulent rivers and dramatic crags. Traces of 10,000 years of human activity survive to be studied today, including flint scatters at Mesolithic campsites, earthworks of prehistoric and later settlements and field systems, and extensive remnants of the post-medieval ‘miner-farmer’ landscape.
Morris-Campbell, Jake
Between the salt and the ash: a journey into the soul of Northumbria
(Tyne Bridge, 2025) – ISBN 9781526175373 – £20
Jake Morris-Campbell, takes us on his own pilgrimage into the soul of Northumbria, from Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral, echoing the journey of St Cuthbert’s body after the Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries. On his way, Jake takes Nick, the old miner’s lamp that belonged to his great grandfather, as a symbol of his own connection to the regional identity. Towards the end of the journey, he also retraces the steps taken by Wearside poet Bill Martin.
Rees, O
The far edges of the known world: a new history of the Ancient Past
(Bloomsbury, 2005) – ISBN 9781526653789 – £25.00
When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his new bleak and barbarous surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilisation ceased to exist. Our fascination with the Greek and Roman world, and the abundance of writing that we have from it, means that we usually explore the ancient world from this perspective too. Was Ovid’s exile really as bad as he claimed? What was it truly like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?
Thanks to archaeological excavations, we now know that the borders of the empires we consider the ‘heart’ of civilisation were in fact thriving, vibrant cultures – just not ones we might expect. This is where the boundaries of ‘civilised’ and ‘barbarians’ began to dissipate; where the rules didn’t always apply; where normally juxtaposed cultures intermarried; and where nomadic tribes built their own cities.
Taking us along the sandy caravan routes of Morocco to the freezing winters of the northern Black Sea, from Co-Loa in the Red River valley of Vietnam to the rain-lashed forts south of Hadrian’s Wall, Owen Rees explores the powerful empires and diverse peoples in Europe, Asia and Africa beyond the reaches of Greece and Rome.
And finally – “Not again!”
Every now and again (and again, recently) someone asks if we know about the mysterious Hexham Heads. This is what we have recorded in the I didn’t Know That! page of our website www.hexhamhistorian.org/historic-hexham/i-didnt-know-that/
A replica of the Flavinus stone as it would have looked originally. From the Roman Museum at Corstopitum (Coria)
The Hexham Heads were a pair of small stone heads, about 6 cm high, found in 1971 in the English town of Hexham. The heads became associated with alleged paranormal phenomena, and their exact origin is a point of controversy.
The heads were originally dug up by two boys, Colin and Leslie Robson, who found them in the garden in 1971; a number of sources incorrectly give the year as 1972. After the discovery, the Robson family reported strange phenomena, with the heads allegedly being moved when no one was in the room and bottles being mysteriously thrown across rooms. The Dodd family next door also reported phenomena, with one boy’s hair pulled in the night and his mother Nelly seeing a half-man, half-sheep figure leaving the house shortly afterwards.
The heads were subsequently given to Dr Anne Ross, an expert in Celtic artefacts. According to Dr Ross’s own account, she woke up one morning and saw a part-animal, part-man figure walking out of the room; she followed it downstairs and saw it heading towards the direction of the kitchen, but then lost track of it. A few days later her daughter Berenice told her that, after returning home from school, saw a large, dark, werewolf-like figure on the stairs that jumped over the banisters and into a corridor before vanishing, the wolf believed to have some relation to the Hexham wolf that killed livestock in the winter of 1904. Ross also reported the feeling of a cold presence, her study door bursting open with no apparent cause and another apparent sighting of a dark figure. Knowing of Nelly Dodd’s experience, Dr Ross equated all of these phenomena with the Hexham heads and the incidents allegedly stopped when she removed every Celtic head in her possession out of the house, along with the two Hexham heads.
A man named Desmond Craigie reported that he was the creator of the heads, making them in 1956 for his daughter while he was living in the house later occupied by the Robson family, along with a third head which became damaged and had to be thrown away. Craigie, who worked for a company that dealt in concrete at the time he allegedly created the heads, made some replicas to demonstrate his claim. The original heads were analysed by Professor Dearman of the University of Newcastle, who concluded that the items had been moulded artificially rather than carved.
The original heads were later lost, their current whereabouts are unknown.
To find about other myths & legends relating to Hexham; famous people with Hexham connections and all sorts of intriguing titbits about the town, check out www.hexhamhistorian.org/historic-hexham/i-didnt-know-that/