Mining Heritage

As we look around the idyllic farming countryside and the wide, wild fells of the North Tyne and Redesdale we might not realise that years ago, many parts of these seemingly unspoilt landscapes were the scenes of intense industrial operations.

Coal mines, iron mines, blast furnaces and quarries dotted the landscape more than a hundred years ago, and many of the houses we see around us today were built to house the industrial workers from these ventures.

The Hareshaw Iron Works on the banks of the Hareshaw Burn in Bellingham was a thriving industry when great steel towns such as Middlesbrough had barely begun. The Ridsdale Iron Works in Redesdale produced iron for the High Level Bridge in Newcastle. Collieries such as Hareshaw, Lewisburn and Plashetts, now all but forgotten, once supplied fuel for homes and industries across Northumberland and far beyond.

Now these industries are almost all gone, but traces remain. The Centre houses collections of maps and photographs showing this industrial archaeology, and the exhibitions include all kinds of fascinating relics from these bygone industries, providing a glimpse into the lives of the old miners and their communities.

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