Brenkley

Blagdon Hall (grid reference NZ21557705) is a privately owned English country house near Cramlington in Northumberland. It is a Grade I listed building. The house and estate have been in the ownership of the White Ridley family since 1698. The present Viscount Ridley is the science writer and hereditary peer Matt Ridley. The house was built in two phases between about 1720 and 1752 by Matthew White and his son Sir Matthew White, 1st Baronet, whose sister Elizabeth married Matthew Ridley (1711–1778), four times Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne. His son Matthew White Ridley inherited the estate and succeeded his uncle as second baronet. Blagdon Hall was substantially enlarged in the nineteenth century to designs by the architects John Dobson and Ignatius Bonomi. Some of these additions were removed following a fire in 1944. The gardens were extensively remodelled in the 1930s by Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose daughter Ursula was married to The 3rd Viscount Ridley. The stable block designed by James Wyatt in Palladian style in 1791 is Grade II* listed and a 19th-century folly in the grounds is Grade II listed. The gardens also contain the only surviving bronze of John Graham Lough's gigantic statue of Milo of Croton. On the estate is Shotton Surface Mine, a large open cast coal mine and Northumberlandia (the "Lady of the North"), a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure made from mining waste. The Royal Agricultural Society of England awarded the Bledisloe Gold Medal in 2015 to Ridley as they "wanted to highlight the extensive environmental improvement work that has been undertaken across the land".

Dinnington is a village and civil parish in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in Tyne and Wear, England. It is about 9 miles (14 km) north of the city centre, and about 5 miles (8.0 km) north-east of Newcastle International Airport. According to the 2011 Census, Dinnington Parish has 737 households and a population of 1,636; of whom 358 are 65 or over (almost 22%). The village has been inhabited since before the Iron Age (700 BC). Mining has taken place from at least 1715, with the first deep mine being the Augusta Pit at Dinnington Colliery which was sunk in 1867. 1919 saw the formation of Dinnington Parish Council. In 1974 boundary changes led to the village, previously within Northumberland, being incorporated into the City of Newcastle upon Tyne.Formerly a coal-mining village with at least four pits within two miles (3 km), Dinnington expanded during the last 40 years of the twentieth century to become a commuter or dormitory village with suburban residential estates and is set for further residential development. Two areas of Green Belt land have been removed to allow 250 private houses to be built and a further 160 have been constructed at Donkey Field.On 1 April 1876, a 23-years-old miner, George Hunter, was hanged for murder at Morpeth Goal. In December 1875, Hunter and his victim, William Wood, who both worked at Dinnington Colliery, were in a group of armed miners intent on a shooting expedition. Following a snowball fight and altercation outside St Matthew's churchyard on Main Road, Dinnington, Hunter fired at Wood with a shotgun, killing him. He was found guilty of murder on 5 March 1876, the subsequent execution carried out by William Marwood. William Wood was buried at St Matthew's with an attendance of 1,500 people.Big Waters, a nature reserve at a subsidence pond, is nearby.The local school, Dinnington First School has around 140-150 pupils and feeds into Gosforth East Middle School. A statutory notice was issued in October 2017 to increase pupil numbers at Dinnington First School from 150 to 300 pupil places by building a new school on the same Sycamore Avenue site. It is planned that the school will double its intake and admit up to 60 pupils into the reception class in September 2019. There will continue to be up to 52 part-time places in the nursery class.

Shotton Surface Mine was an open cast coal mine located on the estate of Blagdon Hall, Northumberland, UK, operated by Banks Group. The mine was granted permission by the government in 2007, despite being refused permission by Blyth Valley Council, with an initial agreement to mine 3.4 million tonnes of coal, 2 million tonnes of shale and 750,000 tonnes of fireclay. This was subsequently extended by two years in 2011 to allow an additional 2 million tonnes of coal to be mined, set to end in 2016. An additional expansion approved in 2014 saw two new pits being opened on the site, Shotton Triangle (290,000 tonnes of coal) and Shotton South West (250,000 tonnes of coal), with the end date pushed back a year to October 2017; the land was expected to be restored by 2019. The mine eventually ceased production in summer 2020. In total, over 8% of British coal output comes from the Shotton site. The mine produced over one million tonnes of coal in 2014 and employs around 150 people. These jobs are temporary, although when the mine closes some former employees may be transferred to Banks' new site at Highthorn, near Druridge Bay.The land on which the mine was developed is owned by science writer and Conservative hereditary peer Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, who is a prominent climate change sceptic. As a result, the site has been protested by the "Keep it in the Ground" fossil fuel divestment campaign, who picketed the site and halted operations for the day on 26 October 2015. Royalties from the site go to the Government, but the Blagdon Estate receives a way leave payment estimated at between three and four million pounds. Over 1.5 million tonnes of waste material from the site was used to build the Northumberlandia sculpture on an adjoining site. Northumberlandia, which takes the form of a naked reclining female figure, was constructed as planning gain by the Banks Group to allow development of the Shotton site, and was opened as a public park in 2012.

Castle is a ward of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. The ward encompasses the villages of Brunswick, Dinnington and Hazlerigg. Castle ward borders the neighbouring authorities of North Tyneside and Northumberland. The population of the ward is 9,912 making up 3.8% of the total population of the city. The population of the ward had increased to 10,069 at the 2011 Census. Car ownership stands at 76.2% much higher than Newcastle's average of 54.7%. House prices in the area average at £189,400.

The Seaton Burn Wagonway (originally known as the Brunton and Shields Railway) was from 1826 to 1920 a partially horse-drawn and partially rope-operated industrial railway with a gauge of 4 ft 6 in (1,372 mm) near Newcastle upon Tyne.

Brunswick Village is a village split between North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. It is situated approximately 6 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and borders Hazlerigg, Dinnington and Wideopen. It was formerly known as Dinnington Colliery.

Havannah Nature Reserve lies to the west of the village of Hazlerigg, approximately five miles north of the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. It was declared a nature reserve in 1998 and is designated a Site of Local Conservation Interest. A wildlife corridor runs through the site. Owned by Newcastle City Council and managed by Urban Green Newcastle, it is often referred to as Havannah and Three Hills Nature Reserve, so called after the drift mine and the slag heaps, which were located at the site when Hazlerigg Colliery was operational, from 1892 to 1964.

Seaton Burn is a village in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, to the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and adjacent to Wideopen which is just south of it. It is part of the wider Seaton valley in which some Seaton villages are in Northumberland, and others in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear. This is because the area lies on the border between the two counties. The A1 used to pass through the village but now bypasses the village just to the west, where it meets the A19 which is the link road to the Tyne Tunnel.

Northumberlandia (the "Lady of the North") is a huge land art sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near Cramlington, Northumberland, northern England. It is in the care of Northumberland Wildlife Trust.Made of 1.5 million tonnes of earth from neighbouring Shotton Surface Mine, it is 34 metres (112 feet) high and 400 metres (1,300 feet) long, set in a 19 hectares (47 acres) public park. Its creators claim that it is the largest land sculpture in female form in the world.When constructed, it was intended to be a major tourist attraction, with the developers hoping that it would attract an additional 200,000 visitors a year to Northumberland. It was officially opened by Anne, Princess Royal on 29 August 2012. A day-long Community Opening Event on 20 October 2012 marked the park becoming fully open to the public.

Plessey railway station served the hamlet of Plessey, Northumberland, England from 1859 to 1962 on the East Coast Main Line.

Hazlerigg (often misspelled Hazelrigg) is a village and civil parish north of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne in Tyne and Wear, England. It is about 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the city centre, on the A1. It is split between Newcastle upon Tyne and North Tyneside, each side of the A1 being a different district. The parish council administer the Newcastle side, whereas the area located in North Tyneside is unparished. Much of the Newcastle Great Park development is within the area administered by the Hazlerigg Parish Council. Located in the village is a post office, a fish & chip shop, a beauty salon, a hairdresser, a garage, a convenience store and a social club that is now open under new management. In spite of having a population of 1,053, and almost 800 homes, Hazlerigg has never had a pub. The population of the civil Parish taken at the 2011 Census was 980.The village Community Centre is located at the west of the village next to the 'show field', formerly the site of the annual village Gala. A football field is located between Hazlerigg and the neighbouring Brunswick Village. Although Brunswick Village is only a 2-minute walk from Hazlerigg, the journey may take longer by car as there is no direct road linking the two villages, as they were once separated by a railway line for coal wagons. The path between the villages now follows the route of this wagonway. The shortest journey by road is two miles via Wideopen and the old Great North Road. The village is now being expanded by a large housing development called Havannah Park to the west, across the road from the Havannah Nature Reserve.

Wideopen, also occasionally misspelled as Wide Open, is a village in the North Tyneside metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, England, around 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Newcastle. Wideopen adjoins the settlements of Seaton Burn, Brunswick Village and Hazlerigg. The village straddles the historic Great North Road, formerly the A1 trunk road, but is now bypassed by a new alignment of the A1 immediately to the west. The village lies in an area with a strong mining history and had its own colliery. Weetslade Country Park, to the east of the village, is reclaimed from an extensive area of coal mining activity.In 2012 work commenced on the building of a new housing estate by Bellway homes, called Five Mile Park. It is located to the east of the Great North Road, between Lockey Park and Weetslade Country Park. The name refers to the distance from the centre of Newcastle; similarly, there is a Three Mile Inn to the south, and a Six Mile Bridge to the north.