North-East History Tour

  Many Ryhope old-timers may remember Ryhope Hall. Gutted by fire in the 1950s and demolished in the 1960s, its unusual brick tower was a ...

  Maiden’s Paps – or Tunstall Hills, as they are less crudely and more properly called – form one of the best vantage points in the borough ...

  © Copyright Brian Abbott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence . This prehistoric burial mound sits atop a low pr...

    In case you can’t read the inscription, it says:- The First Aluminium Alloy Bascule Bridge in the World. Port of Sunderland. From t...

  The largest catastrophe of its kind ever to take place in the UK occurred on 16th June 1883 in Sunderland, when 183 children died of asph...

  Joseph Cawthorne, or ‘John the Pieman’, was a well-known character of mid-nineteenth century Sunderland – more especially for the way in ...

If you could stop your car on the busy A19 dual carriageway at the point where it crosses the River Wear and peer over its eastern edge int...

The inventor of the incandescent electric light bulb was born at Pallion Hall*, Sunderland, on 31st October 1828. Leaving school at twelve...

In 1989, the final remaining vestiges of the shipbuilding industry were wiped from the River Wear when the Pallion and Southwick yards were...

   It is difficult to believe that the River Wear at Sunderland was not bridged until the 1790s. Wearside’s growing wealth was, of course,...

   One of the world’s greatest historical treasures, the Codex Amiatinus is the oldest surviving one-volume Latin Bible in the world. One o...

    [text from The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore & Legend , November 1891 - author J.R.Boyle FSA]     The tower and the west ...

   [thanks to Craigy144 at en.wikipedia ]   This curiously-situated relic of the past has withstood the ravages of time, the elements and ...

From a letter which appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine of October 1763:- A few weeks ago a gentleman from Durham shewed me some large ...

  This is something many of you will remember: a 1 pint milk token issued by the Co-operative store – in this case, the one at Boldon. Thes...

  As many people know, the famous Domesday Book of 1086 does not cover English lands north of the River Tees. For whatever reason – be it ...

    From The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore & Legend , May 1891:- 2nd April – At a wedding which took place at Whitburn Par...

It is a connection from not so very long ago, but it is a link which has already become swathed in legend, myth and hearsay. Just how stron...

© Copyright DAVID ELSY and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence Situated on its lofty perch atop the Cleadon Hills, thi...

     Looking much the same in 1900 (above) as it does today, Cleadon Water Tower was built during 1859-62 as part of the water pumping sta...