Hexham Courant headlines in Tynedale up to 150 years ago

10 years ago

STAR-STRUCK: There were ambitious plans to create a £8.5m astronomy village at Kielder, including a 60-seat planetarium, to complement the Kielder Observatory which at the time attracted up to 25,000 visitors a year. There were also plans for a custom-built £500,000 telescope and an accommodation block for stargazers. 

SPECIAL DELIVERY: There was a special wedding guest when Kielder couple Karl Storey and Jasmine Grief tied the knot. Just four hours after giving birth, Jasmine turned up for the ceremony with new baby Anthony in tow. After giving birth in Hexham General Hospital, 27-year-old Jasmine was driven straight to Gretna Green 45 miles away for the wedding ceremony. 

NEW OPENING: Stationer and bookseller WHSmith was to open its doors in Hexham and create eight new jobs. 

25 years ago

SINKING AMBITIONS: Plans for a multi-million-pound extension to Prudhoe Waterworld were to be scaled down after a bid for sports Lottery funding failed. The Sports Lottery Council announced it had turned down a £1.85m bid to fund a major sports hall extension. The scheme's partners had already planned a £1.3m extension without Lottery money. The Lottery Council was concerned the ongoing revenue implications were large in relation to the apparent need for the size of the facility. 

CHARITY RIDE: A man who left Haydon Bridge for far-away shores five years earlier was to return to a hero's welcome. Friends and family of Alan Curry were putting on a party for him as he finished a 2,000-mile charity bike ride all the way home from his new home in Malta. They were aiming to raise enough money to buy vital new kidney dialysis equipment for St Luke's Hospital in Malta. 

EARTHQUAKE ESCAPE: Elaine Young and her two-year-old son Dominic were staying with relatives in the heart of the Greek capital of Athens when an earthquake struck and claimed more than 140 lives and injured hundreds more. They returned safely to Prudhoe several days later.

Colin Tait, 70, and Sheilagh Stanton, 69, were to marry in 1999 and honeymoon in the south of France (Image: Newsquest)

BLOOMING ROMANCE: Colin Tait, 70, and Sheilagh Stanton, 69, were to get married and fly off for a romantic honeymoon in the South of France. The couple, both Jehovah's Witnesses, met through their church and put their love down to common interests of music, walking and the arts and were looking forward to growing even older with each other.

50 years ago

NOT PAYING UP: Rent arrears in Tynedale passed the £10,000 mark, a council housing services committee meeting learned. 

ON TRACK: Hexham racecourse hosted National Hunt races for the first time. Six races were run on the day the Tynedale course made its National Hunt debut. 

HOTEL REOPENS: Hexham restaurateur Giovani Fortini reopened Allendale's 14-bedroom Ashleigh Hotel at Thornley Gate.

75 years ago

RECORDS BROKEN: Two new records were set at the North Tyne and Redesdale Agricultural Society's 1949 annual show at Bellingham. The crowd of 15,000 that turned up for it was 2,000 up on the previous year's record turnout and the record for entries set the year before also fell. 1949's total tally of entries, 3,370, was 200 higher than 1948's.  

OFFERING SUPPORT: A supporters' club was set up by fans of the Hexham Hearts football team.

HEXHAMSHIRE MOVE: The Rev. W Dunsmore Lee, formerly vicar of Nenthead, took up a similar post at St Helen's, Whitley Chapel.

100 years ago

UPWARDS: Edmundbyers' annual agricultural show in 1924 attracted a record crowd of more than 3,000 plus a record number of entries, 100 up on the previous year.

TOILET TROUBLE: Hexham Rural District Council rejected calls for it to have public conveniences built at Branch End, Stocksfield. The nuisance being caused there was almost entirely down to bus drivers being caught short so it was up to the Newcastle corporation or private bus companies that employed them to provide any urinals it was felt were needed, councillors agreed.

ON SONG: The Prudhoe Gleemen male voice choir came first in a choir contest held at Stamfordham's annual flower show, beating off competition from singers from Wallsend and Gateshead. 

125 years ago

WATER FOUNTAIN: A new drinking fountain was fitted at the Sele in Hexham. This £30-plus iron edifice was provided by the Abbey Church of England Temperance Society. 

TRAIN STATION DEATH: A Hexham gamekeeper died after being knocked over by a train at Haltwhistle railway station while on his way back from a shooting trip to Coanwood. He was reported to be the third gamekeeper on the same estate to meet a sudden death within the year.

150 years ago

EQUINE DEATH: A Hexham fruiterer's errand boy died after being thrown off a horse in Battle Hill, the street he lived on. 

NO TAKERS: Hexham's 40-acre Loughbrow Park estate was put up for auction but withdrawn after failing to reach the reserve price of £6,000 put on it. The house and grounds went under the hammer again 75 years later and again went unsold, after bidding stopped at £5,000.