Heritage project brings lost North Tyne community in from the cold

The remarkable story of this self-contained community is just one of the echoes of the past to emerge from a two-year project which will be completed at the end of January.

The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £42,000 to Chollerton Parish History Society to create an atlas concentrating on the area's Barrasford and Gunnerton villages.

The atlas plots the origins of the villages, and the gradual change from a purely farming economy to a more industrial way of life with the arrival of the Border Counties Railway, quarrying, coal mining, sawmill and even a salmon hatchery.

The project has also conjured up characters from the villages' past, and has drawn on 1,500 photographs, letters, documents, bills of sale, and farm account books provided by locals as part of a series of walks, talks and "gathering" sessions organised as part of the project.

Other sources included the guest book from the Barrasford Arms pub, listing the names, homes and comments of visitors from the 1930s onwards and memories recorded from older villagers.

An exhibition on the villages around 1900 is on show at Bellingham Heritage Centre until January 8, and the history atlas is due to be published at the end of January.

Ivor Crowther, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the North East, said: "This fascinating history was at risk of being lost. Now people will have the chance to learn how the area once was and see how it has changed over the years."

In 1900 the villages shared a school, pub, and policeman, but each had its own blacksmith, cobbler, butcher, tailor, stone mason, dressmaker, joiner, post office and shop.

Barrasford also had a railway station and sawmill, while the nearby Haughton ferry rowed passengers across the North Tyne.

There were five farms in Gunnerton and four in Barrasford - not much different to today.

The parish history society has been working with Richard Carlton and Alan Rushworth from The Archaeological Practice in Newcastle, and historic buildings expert Peter Ryder .

Mr Carlton said: "There has been a wonderful response to this project, which truly has been a community effort."

The remains of a number of Iron Age and Romano-British homes have been found in the area, plus the foundations of what is likely to be a medieval tower in Gunnerton.

Barrasford belonged to Alnwick's Percy dynasty, and the Northumberland Estates archives produced a set of coloured maps of the study area from the late 1600s through to the 18th and 19th Centuries.

They show the largely medieval layout of the village and its fields and common.

Copies of the atlas will be placed in libraries and locations like Woodhorn and Bellingham Heritage Centre.

Because of the demand, the history society is also considering printing more copies for individual sale.

How the North East TB scourge was tackled

The scourge of tuberculosis lent urgency to the need for action in the North East.

In 1902 a subscription fund was set up to finance the building of a sanatorium to treat patients.

William Watson-Armstrong, who had become Baron Armstrong after the death of his great uncle Lord Armstrong of Cragside, gave £4,000 - equivalent to £350,000 today.

A total of £19,600 was eventually raised (the equivalent of £1.75m today) and from a list of 50 sites, a location was chosen above Gunnerton Crag.

The open aspect and fresh air of the moorland, the nearby 10-acre pine tree plantation and 6,000 gallons of water a day from a borehole were considered to be a health-giving package.

The enemy was TB, a bacterial infection which most commonly destroys the tissue of the lungs. It had previously been known as consumption because of the way it consumed its victims.

In the days before antibiotics, there was a desperate search for ways of combating the disease.

When Barrasford sanatorium opened, Newcastle, Gateshead, South Shields and Tynemouth had the highest death rates from TB in England. Fresh air and the outdoors was thought to be a key part of treatment for TB.

At the opening of the sanatorium, a newspaper report read: "Patients will have one of the most extensive views in the valley of the North Tyne, varying from the moorland that surrounds the buildings to the beauties of the pastoral country in the vale.

"The patients will have the advantage of being far away from human habitation. They will have all the advantages of the pure air of the moorlands and the scent of the pines."

The main building was a south-facing two-storey crescent with a three-storey central block as nurses' accommodation.

Blocks of 30 beds for men and 20 for women patients flanked the central section. Lord Armstrong, who opened the sanatorium in front of 600 people, remarked that he hoped "that many would come here in sorrow and sickness, and would go away rejoicing and in health."

All bedrooms had French windows opening out on to a terrace or balcony, which were kept open in all weathers and at all times.

Patients' beds could be pulled outside and there were two open air galleries where they could sit in bad weather.

Sufferers could be confined to months of bed rest before being allowed to sit up in their rooms and eventually being permitted to go for walks in the grounds and finally engage in outdoor work.

The resident medical officer was Dr Cecil Goodwin, who served from 1917 to 1954 and who in his younger days had played in goal for Leeds United.

With antibiotics eventually providing an effective treatment for TB, the sanatorium closed in 1960. Three years later it caught fire and was burned to the ground.

DIGGING IN: HOW THE ROCK AND THE RAILWAY COMBINED

THE opening of the Border Counties Railway paved the way for an expansion of quarrying in the area.

The hard Whin Sill rock was worked by the Northumberland Whinstone Company in the 1870s, using a tramway worked by a small locomotive called Midge.

The 1871 census shows six men from Barrasford working at quarrying but by 1901 this figure had risen to 35. In Gunnerton there were 11 quarry workers in 1871 and 50 in 1901.

The Barrasford Quarry (pictured) is operated today by Tarmac.

ORANGES FROM THE BAHAMAS

Two men who played a central role in the life of the villages were headmaster Alfred Atkinson and Bishop Wilfrid Hornby.

Mr Atkinson served for 41 years as head of the local school, built in 1831 by subscription and where his daughter, Annie, was also a teacher.

His logbooks mention an indoor school temperature of -6 degrees in February 1912, when the inkwells froze solid.

In 1908 he wrote about the children eating large amounts of unripe fruit.

"Although the children are warned of the evil consequences, they persist until they become ill."

In 1911, as a Christmas present, the pupils gave Mr Atkinson a live turkey. He retired in 1915 and died the same year.

Bishop Hornby's grandfather, the Rev Christopher Bird, had been vicar of Chollerton from 1821 to 1867.

His son, Canon Bird, succeed him and on his death Bishop Hornby took up the living at Chollerton in 1897.

He had been Bishop of Nyasaland in Africa, and in 1904 he became Bishop of Nassau in the Bahamas from where he sent the village children a box of oranges.