What made Hexham Courant headline news 150 years ago

10 years ago

GALE FORCE: High winds battered Tynedale and caused widespread disruption with gusts up to 75mph bringing down power lines and cutting off electricity.

NEW OWNERS: Derwent Manor, a three-star hotel at Allensford, was bought out of administration by new owners Keith Donkin and Linda Wrout.

REDESIGN: Hexham bus station was marked for closure with houses to be built on the site in a radical redesign of the town centre.

25 years ago

BANKS BURST: Flooding swamped Tynedale as over an inch and a half of rain fell in less than 24 hours.

Helen Banks and Robin Nixon with a Christmas tree made out of pipes and fittings in 1998 (Image: Newsquest)

ROYAL VISIT: Princess Anne opened a £900,000 project in Haltwhistle which saw the refurbishment of a listed ticket office into a new tourist information centre.

YOUTH ISSUES: Allendale Parish Council met Hexham police to address problems caused by youths including rowdyism and drug abuse.

50 years ago

COVER UP: School uniform rules at Hexham's Queen Elizabeth Grammar School were changed to allow girls to wear trousers rather than skirts, bell-bottom flares apparently being the most popular choice with the pro-women's lib pupils.

BURSTING OUT: Homes in Station Road, Corbridge were flooded with foul-smelling slurry after a plastic sewage pipe there burst.

STREAKER STOPPED: A naked woman who was seen walking along the Hexham-Prudhoe road was stopped and taken home by the police.

75 years ago

BY THE BOOK: Hexham's Brough Library - a collection of almost 12,000 books given to the town two years previously by Mrs and Mrs JW Brough of Allendale to celebrate the Allies winning the Second World War, was opened.

NURSING HOMES: The Willows at Corbridge and a house in Tynedale Terrace, Hexham were bought by Northumberland County Council for conversion into nurses' quarters.

TRAGEDY CLAIM: The lack of housing in Hexham for young couples was tantamount to a social tragedy, an urban council heard.  

100 years ago

ON THE ROAD: Work on a new road linking the church at Kirkhaugh with the Alston road was completed.

SELE SCHEME: A £3,500 plan to provide a bowling green and tennis courts at the Sele in Hexham was unveiled by Hexham Urban Council.

125 years ago

TRAIN CRASH: Seven cows died after the railway wagons they were being transported in were derailed near Warden. 

MOURNED: One of Hexham's oldest traders, Fore Street jeweller and watchmaker, William Harrison, died at age 66. 

RUNNING CLUB: Tynedale Harriers' Club was founded by athletics enthusiasts at a public meeting at the Coach and Horses Inn in Hexham. 

150 years ago

DIRTY WORK: Cesspools, privies and ashpits in Hexham's Gilesgate were branded a disgrace by members of the town's urban sanitary authority.