What made headline news in Hexham, Tynedale 150 years ago?

10 years ago

Vikki Urwin and Wendy Bond from the Campaign to Open Gilsland Station group pictured at the site of the old railway station (Image: Newsquest)

FULL STEAM AHEAD: Rail campaigners fought to revive the train station at Gisland by fundraising enough money to reopen the station, despite being told it could cost up to £2.5m. Campaigners believed it would boost local tourism and businesses.

GREEN ENERGY: Environmental action group Transition Tynedale and Hexham Community Partnership teamed up for a green energy project focusing on technology including solar photovoltaic panels and small to medium wind turbines.

HOMEBASE OPENS: The first business in Hexham's new £8m retail park opened, as national DIY chain Homebase welcomed customers at the new store.

25 years ago

ALDI GREEN LIGHT: A surprise U-turn from Tynedale councillors gave the go-ahead for the German cut-price supermarket store Aldi to open a discount food store in Hexham. 

CASH DEMAND: One of Tynedale's prestigious sporting events faced a surprise cash demand from Hexham Police. Organisers of Tynedale Harriers' popular road race from Hexham to Ovingham were stunned to receive a bill for £1,625 from Hexham Police. If the event was to go ahead, Hexham Police were demanding the bill.

SUCCESS: Whitley Chapel Young Farmers' Club emerged victorious from the Northern regional heats of the national YFC pantomime competition with their version of Aladdin. 

50 years ago

CHAIRMAN OUT: Hexham Parish Council chairman John Pickering resigned after only five weeks into his term of office after a vote of no confidence went against him. The move, prompted by a row over the recruitment of a new council clerk, was reversed a week later when Cllr Pickering was voted back in.

NEW SCHOOL: Work got underway on the construction of St Joseph's Middle School in Hexham. The new Roman Catholic School was to open the following year, it was reported.

ESTATE OFFER REJECTED: Upper North Tyne Valley dwellers about to be made homeless by the creation of the Kielder Reservoir rejected an offer of new homes on a 35-house council estate to be built at Falstone. The proposed new houses were too close together and too urban in style, a meeting of Falstone Parish Council heard.

IRISH EPIC: The David Lean film Ryan's Daughter, starring Robert Mitchum and Trevor Howard, was showing at Hexham's Forum Cinema.  

75 years ago

RODENT DEATH TOLL: A total of 11,061 rats and mice had been destroyed under the auspices of Hexham Urban District Council in 1948 at a cost of 2 1/4d apiece, a report to the council's health committee revealed.

SPIRITS BID SUCCEEDS: Allendale's village pharmacy was granted a liquor licence allowing it to sell spirits as well as the medicated wines it already stocked. Pharmacist Arthur Walker's successful licence application was backed by a supporting petition signed by 122 customers. 

100 years ago

SELE ROW: The then Lord Allendale and Hexham Urban District Council fell out over the former's predecessor's gift of the Sele Park to the town. Councillors claimed the Allen Valley peer was reneging on an agreement made by his forbear by raising objections to plans for recreation facilities being drawn up by the council.

BRIDGE PLEA: Prudhoe urban councillors called on Northumberland County Council to take over the Ovingham toll bridge and make it available for free. 

GARDENER MOURNED: James Bambrough, a former Warden parish councillor and secretary to Newbrough Mechanics' Insititute, died aged 88. 

125 years ago

PRIMITIVE PROJECT: Work started to build a new £2,800 Primitive Methodist chapel and school at Birtley, near Wark, on the village's Station Road. 

GRUESOME FIND: The body of a stillborn child was found in a disused hen-house off Hexham's Gilesgate Bank. Whose child the dead boy was and how the body came to be in the hen-house was unknown, an inquest heard. 

150 years ago

SHOOTING ACCIDENT: A woman and a child were injured by shotgun pellets while walking along the turnpike road near Alston. The man that shot failed to see them while firing at a target beyond them, it was reported. Both the boy and the woman, a servant, sustained only minor injuries.