September 26, 2012

Ingram – St Michael and All Angels

The first Saturday of the autumn was a beautiful day. After a summer of wet weddings, Alison and Matthew had a wonderful afternoon. Once I had finished we drove north and ended up having coffee at The Breeze in Wooler – http://www.breatheglendale.com/Breeze.html. As we went in I said “look darling, that shop down there must be a second hand book shop, there are boxes of books outside”; by the time we came out the boxes had gone and the shop was shut. I was least popular husband. In the other direction there is a newsagent, with some books for sale....
Categories Northumberland/Railway History/World War 1 Comments: 2
September 22, 2012

Wark – St Michael

My lovely little church at Mibourne needs a loo – we are all getting to that age. Milbourne has no water. We need a composting loo. Wark has a composting loo. Duncan (church secretary) and I need a visit. We invite our beloved wives to come too – “Darling, come and see a composting loo”. Wark church is on the north side of the village (NY858776) with a large car park, and the loo in the old hearse house. We inspected it with the help of Michael the Rector and Ann the Churchwarden. We want one! Then we explored...
Categories Northumberland Comments: 2
August 19, 2012

Happy Birthday Me

Last October, when I walked from the South Tynedale Railway Station down to Kirkhaugh church – and then dashed back so as not to miss the train – I wondered if it might be a good venue to celebrate my birthday in 2012. A Big Birthday – one of those with a 0 at the end (50 …). “The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down”, T.S. Eliot (apparently). The day after I was born Eleanor and Peter were...
Categories Cumbria/Northumberland/Railway History Comments: 0
August 19, 2012

Otterburn – St John

    It was early last month – July – when I got to Otterburn. I’ve driven past quite a few times, up and down the main road. This time I stopped, in their nice new car park (NY885932), and went in. I had driven via Elsdon, and it is Elsdon that, for many centuries, looked after this huge area. Otterburn church was built in the mid 1850s and became a separate parish in 1921. It’s now part of the North Tyne and Redesdale Team – still need to visit Horsley and get in to Byrness. Currently Susan in...
Categories Evetts' windows/Northumberland Comments: 0
July 12, 2012

Nenthead – St John

After lunch at Alston I left the engine driver and headed down the A689 to Nenthead, also in Cumbria. The afternoon was grotty and I didn’t see Nenthead at its best. It is England’s highest village at 1,500 feet, and has been a major centre for lead and silver mining. The London Lead Company was formed by Quakers in 1704, and they recognised the moral responsibility they had to their workers. It is probably the first purpose-built industrial village in England and laid the foundations for today’s social welfare system. The Quakers built decent housing, a school (compulsory schooling for all...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland/Railway History Comments: 3
July 12, 2012

Garrigill – St John

It is a wet, horrid summer and seems to have been grotty for the last few months. On Thursday 31 May Gareth was driving at Alston, so I went too. After one train ride down their new extension, I went for a drive.  These lovely buttercup meadows are on the very narrow road along the slopes of Alston Moor – round about NY705428. Garrigill, although in the Diocese of Newcastle, is in Cumbria – so my Pevsner is no good. Typing “St John’s Garrigill” into google, the first hit is “St John’s heated swimming pool”, the highest heated swimming...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland/Railway History/World War 1 Comments: 5
June 6, 2012

Whorlton – St John

Another Deanery church (NZ186679) – and I was asked to take a Friday morning communion for them on 25 May. I rarely drive into Newcastle along the Stamfordham Road and it is only when you look at the old maps and the history leaflet that you realise how industrial it all was – there is a smashing one called “Westerhope Walkabout”, produced by www.newcastlecommunityheritage.org. I drove past the site of North Walbottle Colliery (1891-1968, once employing 1,300 men). Now there are modern estates and yellow rape fields on the other side of the road. The church was built in 1866...
Categories Newcastle upon Tyne Comments: 0
June 3, 2012

Roker – St Andrew

OK, we’re crossing the Tyne and leaving the Diocese. Ponteland Local History Society organised a visit to the Arts and Crafts Cathedral of the North East – NZ404595. Sunderland was growing in the early 20th century and Roker was a new suburb. It was a distance from Fulwell church, so they built a new one – and they didn’t build manageable. John Priestman, a wealthy local shipyard owner gave £6,000 to build a memorial to his mother Jane – eventually it reached £8,000 and the church cost £13,117. The guidebook ruefully notes “The Patron did not however provide the...
Categories Durham Comments: 0
May 26, 2012

Benwell – St James

Newcastle West is a funny Deanery. For those of you not versed in Anglican structures, a Diocese is divided into Archdeaconries,  then into Deaneries, then into Benefices, then into individual parishes. So, for example, Matfen, Ryal and Stamfordham are one benefice, in the Corbridge Deanery, in the Archdeaconry of Lindisfarne, in the Diocese of Newcastle. Ponteland is a parish by itself (so no benefice), Newcastle West Deanery, Archdeaconry of Northumberland, etc. (Reminds me of my Diary in about 1976 when I was 14: “Peter Barham, 76 Wimpole Road, Barton, Cambridge, England, Europe, Earth, somewhere to the left of Mars...
Categories Newcastle upon Tyne Comments: 2
May 25, 2012

Felton – St Michael and All Angels

Having dropped Julie at work, Elaine and I drove to Cragside – stopping to photograph these bluebells just north of Netherwitton. Then the tulips and rhododendrons of Cragside itself – to say nothing of a good National Trust scone. We headed back to collect Julie in Morpeth and, as she was working late, diverted off the A1 to Felton. I would have liked time to wander across the bridge (15th century), visit the bakery, find the mill, even walk up to the church-with-a-spire marked on the OS map (the 1857 Catholic church of St Mary, in the grounds of...
Categories Northumberland/World War 1 Comment: 1