What made Hexham Courant headlines up to 150 years ago?

10 years ago

PASS: Teens across the district prepared for university life after achieving top grades in their A-levels. All four Tynedale high schools celebrated high pass rates, with Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham enjoying its best year with a 99.6 per cent pass rate.

REVIVAL: The economic future of Hexham was secured with a boost of £700,000 to refurbish the County Hotel. 

Refurbishments at the County Hotel in 2013 (Image: Newsquest)

BUILD: Plans to build 14 homes to let in Chollerford were approved. 

25 years ago

MILLIONS: The Queen's Hall Arts Centre in Hexham was due to receive a £5.5 million revamp after plans were backed by councillors and the public.

TAKEOVER: One of Haltwhistle's two major employers, the bottle factory at Plenmeller, was to change hands. 

RETIRING: Stocksfield milkman Vincent Tait retired after more than half a century on the same round. The business had been running since 1943 when it was set up by his father.

FIRES: Fire crews from Prudhoe, Hexham and Tyne and Wear were twice called out to the SCA Hygiene factory in Prudhoe due to paper dust and paper tissue becoming alight.

50 years ago

SOCCER: The Corbridge Rangers football side, winners of six trophies in the previous seven years, disbanded after being evicted from the pitch it had been using by its owner, Tynedale Rugby Club, which wanted to convert it into a rugby pitch.

ROMAN ROW: Three members of the Vindolanda Trust, the management team in charge of the Bardon Mill tourist attraction of that name, resigned following a row over the running of the Roman site.

APPOINTED: Newly formed Tynedale Council announced the line-up of its first management team.

75 years ago

EXCLUSION: Corbridge, Sandhoe and Great Whittington parish councils called for a stretch of land around the Corstopitum Roman site to be excluded from the Northumbrian National Park then being proposed.

LIT: Corbridge parish councillors voted to hang the expense and have all 83 village street lamps lit the following winter.

MOURNED: Former rugby player Ernest Averell, a member of the Tynedale side that won the Northumberland Senior Cup in 1911, died at his Hexham home aged 68.

100 years ago

CRASH: Retired colliery overman William Smith, 77, of Railway Terrace in Haltwhistle, died after he was knocked over by a car at the town's Crossbank.

MEMENTO: A brass tablet listing staff and former pupils of Hexham's Queen Elizabeth Grammar School who fought during the First World War was fitted in the school's assembly hall.

SALE: A Newcastle-based syndicate that had bought Otterburn Hall the year before put it up for sale for £10,000, advertising it as an ideal holiday destination.

125 years ago

CRUELTY: A 15-year-old farm labourer was fined 2s 6d by Haltwhistle magistrates for ill-treating a horse by forcing it to work pulling carts while it was unfit.

150 years ago

THUNDERSTRUCK: A cow belonging to farmer Robinson Turnbull, of Fenwick near Matfen, died after being struck by lightning during what was reported to be a terrible thunderstorm.