Cherryburn and Wylam, Tyne Valley Northumberland
Birthplaces of Artist Thomas Bewick and Engineer George Stephenson
Oct 7, 2009
This was the period that spanned Britain’s transition from a rural to an industrial economy, and the work of these contemporaries reflected both. Bewick recorded, in exquisite detail, the countryside, its animals and birds. Stephenson created the machines that would bring irrevocable changes to that countryside.
Thomas Bewick (1753-1828)
Thomas Bewick was born at Cherryburn, a small farm overlooking the valley of the River Tyne, near Prudhoe. He showed an early aptitude for art, and was apprenticed, in 1767, to Ralph Beilby, in Newcastle, becoming a partner ten years later. During this time, he developed his skills, particularly as a wood engraver, and illustrated many books with his depictions of rural life.
He is best known for his works on natural history: A General History of Quadrupeds (1790), and the two-volume History of British Birds (1797 and 1804). He befriended the American artist, John James Audubon, who named a wren after him. He also gave his name to the Bewick swan.
Bewick returned frequently to Cherryburn, which was inherited by his brother, William. Indeed, the home remained with the family for more than a century after Thomas’s death. It was restored using drawings made by Thomas’s son, Robert, and acquired by the National Trust in 1990.
Bewick’s Birthplace at Cherryburn House
One enters the house through the Exhibition Room, which has many portraits of Bewick, as well as examples of his books, together with stuffed animals and birds, on loan from the Great North Museum, formerly Newcastle’s Hancock Museum. The displays also include magazine and newspaper illustrations, plate designs and bottle labels, all using Bewick’s woodcuts.
In the adjacent Press Room, are printing presses and carving tools of the kinds Bewick used. Each Sunday, from March to October, demonstrations of the art and craft are given by an experienced printer.
The small cottage in which Bewick was born stands across the farmyard to the rear. Two small rooms are open, a comfortable living room, with open fire, table, dresser and grandfather clock, and a smaller bedroom. To the side of this, and sloping steeply down toward the Tyne, is The Paddock, which is grazed by sheep and donkeys. A circular walk of around a quarter-mile follows the perimeter of this.
In front of the house is a garden and picnic area, and to the side of this is an uncultivated wildlife garden. On the first Sunday of each month, from May to October, Cherryburn hosts Folk in the Farmyard events, which include folk songs and dancing, accompanied by traditional music, often played on Northumbrian pipes.
George Stephenson (1781-1848)
A little under four miles downriver of Cherryburn is Wylam, where George Stephenson was born in a tiny cottage belonging to Christopher Blackett, owner of Wylam Colliery. Though he is referred to as the Father of the Railways, George did not invent steam trains, but developed and improved upon others’ ideas.
The family moved from Wylam to Killingworth when George was eight, and it was there, in 1814, that he built his first engine, The Blucher. In 1825, the Stockton-to-Darlington Railway opened as the world’s first public steam railway. The trains were pulled at 14 miles-per-hour by Stephenson’s ‘Locomotion’. Five years later, George assisted his son, Robert to build the famous ‘Rocket’, which won the competition for an engine to pull wagons from Liverpool to Rainhill, Manchester.
The Stephensons’ locomotive works, near Newcastle’s Central Railway Station, was the first such factory in the world.
George Stephenson’s Birthplace Cottage
Stephenson’s cottage consists of four rooms, each of which housed a family. At one time, there were 26 residents. Only the room in which the Stephensons lived is open, and gives an insight into the cramped conditions in which the six children (George was the second) spent their early years. Parents and two children slept in a box bed, with the other four children using a truckle bed - little more than a drawer, pulled from beneath the box bed. Food was cooked on an open fire, and clothes and family were all washed in a wooden tub.
Early Steam Engines on the Wylam Waggonway
The cottage is reached by a half-mile walk along a footpath and cycle track from Wylam. The track follows the line of the Waggonway, which opened in 1748 to transport coal to keelboats at Lemington, four miles downriver. The early wagons were horse-drawn, but in 1813, the colliery manager, William Hedley, and blacksmith, Timothy Hackworth built the steam engines, ‘Puffing Billy’ and ‘Wylam Dilly’ to pull the trains. A replica of Puffing Billy can be seen at the nearby Beamish Museum.
In 1876, the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway was opened, using the same tracks. This closed in 1975. The National Trust car park occupies the site of the North Wylam station on that line.
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