Heddon-on-the-Wall is a village in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

, England, located on

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Ru ...

. Heddon-on-the-Wall is roughly west of the centre of

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

, and just outside Throckley. The place-name 'Heddon' means 'hill where heather grew'.

Etymology

The place-name ' Heddon on the Wall' is first attested in the Pipe Rolls for 1175, where it appears as ''Hedun''. It appears as ''Heddun'' in 1262 and as ''Hedon super murum'' ('Heddon above the wall') in 1242. The name comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

''hæth-dūn'', meaning 'hill where heather grew'. The name should not be confused with that of East Heddon and West Heddon, where the name means 'Hidda's pasture'.

History

A Roman

milecastle A milecastle was a small fort (fortlet), a rectangular fortification built during the period of the Roman Empire. They were placed at intervals of approximately one Roman mile along several major frontiers, for example Hadrian's Wall in Great Bri ...

Milecastle 12 Milecastle 12 (Heddon) was a milecastle of the Roman Hadrian's Wall. Its remains lay under Town Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, (just opposite the farm house) with nothing visible on the surface. Construction Milecastle 12 is of unknown axis and ...

') was located at the site of the present-day village, under what is now Town Farm, but no traces of it are currently visible. Prior to the 1960s, Heddon-on-the-Wall was a small village with an economy based strongly on traditional industry including farming and coal mining. Large-scale coal mining close to the village began in the late 1950s with the opening of the Bays Leap, a opencast mine site located a short distance north of Heddon-on-the-Wall. The site supported seven coal seams at its peak, and evidence was found of earlier mine shafts. Bays Leap closed in 1966. Urban development west of Newcastle saw the village expand substantially during the 1960s. Heddon-on-the-Wall grew up around Hexham Road, which until 1973 was the main road from Newcastle to

Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administra ...

. The new

A69 road The A69 is a major northern trunk road in England, running east–west across the Pennines, through the counties of Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and Cumbria. Originally, the road started in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne then later near Bi ...

bypasses Heddon-on-the-Wall en route from Newcastle to

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City ...

, also passing Hexham. Heddon-on-the-Wall benefits from its proximity to the A69 but is more popular with retired people rather than commuters due to its lack of a railway station, from which its close neighbour

Wylam Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland. It is located about west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is famous for the being the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the early railway pioneers. George Stephenson's Bir ...

benefits. A

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

on the Scotswood, Newburn & Wylam Railway was opened in the village in 1881, but closed in 1958. Heddon-on-the-Wall came to prominence when it was revealed in February 2001 that the 2001 outbreak of

Foot-and-mouth disease Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, follo ...

originated from a farm in the village. This severely affected Heddon-on-the-Wall's primary industry which is

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

. Over the years, however, other industries have existed in Heddon-on-the-Wall. These include

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

fishing in the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wat ...

, coal mining, the

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

ing of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

, and brick making. Wylam Brewery was established at South Houghton Farm in 2000 before moving to Newcastle in 2016.Brewersjournal.info. ''Northern Powerhouse - The story of Wylam Brewery''.
/ref> A number of blacksmiths were in the village until recent times. In the 1970s there was a perfumery-manufacturing business.

Culture and facilities

Church of St Andrew, Heddon on the Wall - geograph

Heddon-on-the-Wall attracts tourists passing through on tours of Hadrian's Wall. Heddon-on-the-Wall is located on the Hadrian's Wall Path, and contains the longest section of unbroken wall at its original and planned width, now known as Broad Wall. Later sections were not built to the full width to save time and money. St Andrew's Church is located opposite the Swan Inn and parts of it are Saxon dating back to 680AD. It was originally consecrated in 630AD. The oldest parts of St Andrew's are still visible in some of the walls of the chancel behind the choir stalls. The original stone structure was built using recycled stone from Hadrian's Wall. Before St Andrew's church was built it is believed that the site was used for pagan ceremonies, so the hilltop location may always have been of religious significance. Heddon-on-the-Wall has two public houses, ''The Three Tuns'' and ''The Swan Inn'', the former of which still has a functioning

payphone A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debi ...

in its car park, . The site at East Heddon is the Victrix Park Sports Field, created in 2020, which is home to local club Heddon United FC. Founded on 1 June 2017, Heddon United FC's main focus is on Junior grassroots football with opportunities for players aged 4 to 18. Heddon United FC has grown rapidly to become the largest grassroots club in the Northumberland-Tynedale district. At the start of the 2020/21 season, Heddon United FC ventured into senior grassroots football with the establishment of a First Team, Reserves squad and Under 23s - the First Team currently featuring in the Northern Alliance Football League. Moving into the 2021/22 season, Heddon United incorporated a senior Ladies squad.

Freedom of the Parish

* Humberside and South Yorkshire Squadron

Army Cadet Force The Army Cadet Force (ACF), generally shortened to Army Cadets, is a national youth organisation sponsored by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and the British Army. Along with the Sea Cadet Corps and the Air Training Corps, the ACF mak ...

: 1960.

References

External links

* http://heddonhistory.weebly.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Heddon-On-The-Wall Villages in Northumberland Civil parishes in Northumberland