Slaley Hall

Colpitts Grange is a hamlet in Northumberland, England. It is about 7 miles (11 km) to the south-east of Hexham.

Slaley is a village in Northumberland, England. It is situated to the southeast of Hexham. It is surrounded by the following villages: Ruffside, Whitley Chapel, Ordley, Wooley, Healey, Juniper, Riding Lea, and Blanchland.The parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. The present church dates from 1832 (with extensive repairs in 1907-8) and was designed by Milton Carr. It stands on the site of an earlier church built in 1312, and that church was built on an earlier church mentioned in 1239 when Gilbert de Sclaueley gave the church and some lands to the prior of Hexham.The nearby hamlet of Shield Hall has the remains of a medieval unfortified house (late 13th/early 14th century). It has been incorporated into the early 19th century farmhouse. The nearby hamlet of Dukesfield is mentioned in 1256 as the scene of a murder. The area was part of the barony of Bolbec. In 1834 lead mining and smelting began. Dukefield Hall is a listed building. To the north of the village there is a disused nuclear bunker. The bunker was opened in 1961 and closed 1991.

The Derwent Reservoir is a reservoir on the River Derwent, on the border between County Durham and Northumberland, in England. It is west of Consett. It is 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long) and covers an area of 4 km2 and has a maximum depth of 100 ft (30m) and when full, holds 11,000 million gallons (50,000,000m³).The reservoir is a key part of the water supply network in north east England (which is owned and managed by Northumbrian Water) as it is the principal water source for the Tyne and Wear metropolitan area supplying 28,000,000 imperial gallons (130,000,000 L; 34,000,000 US gal) per day. The reservoir was first proposed in 1957 when the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company promoted the Derwent Water Order. Building work began on the reservoir in 1960, and it was opened in July 1967 by Princess Alexandra. Unlike other reservoirs in Northern England that are flooded valleys with a dam head, Derwent was dug out of the ground and the earth removed was used in its dam head.The flow of the River Derwent can be supplemented, when necessary, by water transferred from the much larger Kielder Water in Northumberland. However, this connection cannot be used to increase the depth of the reservoir itself. Sediment within the reservoir has been found to contain elevated levels of zinc, lead and cadmium. These have drained into the reservoir from areas of historic mining activity around Blanchland. Consequently, populations of macroscopic plants in the reservoir are relatively low.Derwent Reservoir also hosts a sailing club Archived 21 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine, which holds many events throughout the year, including windsurfing, sailing, running and triathlons. The area around the reservoir hosts the annual Tour of the Reservoir cycle race.The reservoir also has hydro electric plant installed, with a rating of 97 kilowatts.

Pow Hill Bog is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Wear Valley district of County Durham, England. It lies alongside Derwent Reservoir, approximately 2 km north-west of the village of Edmundbyers and adjacent to the Edmundbyers Common portion of the Muggleswick, Stanhope and Edmundbyers Commons and Blanchland Moor SSSI. The site contains two types of mire, a valley mire and a soligenous mire, the former a scarce habitat in County Durham. There are also areas of heathland and semi-improved grassland, as well as small plantations of larch and spruce. The wetter parts of the valley mire are characterised by an abundance of bog mosses, Sphagnum spp, in association with species such as common cottongrass, Eriophorum angustifolium, star sedge, Carex echinata, and bog asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum. The drier areas are heathland, with heather, Calluna vulgaris, hare's-tail cottongrass, Eriophorum vaginatum, cross-leaved heath, Erica tetralix, and common sedge, Carex nigra. The soligenous mire is characterised by sharp-flowered rush, Juncus acutiflorus, and purple moor-grass, Molinia caerulea. Several local species are also present, including narrow-leaved buckler-fern, Dryopteris carthusiana, lesser skullcap, Scutellaria minor, and grass of Parnassus, Parnassia palustris. The site is located within the Pow Hill Country Park, a recreational area managed by Durham County Council.

Healey is a rural estate and civil parish in Northumberland, England, situated between Riding Mill to the north and Slaley to the south. The neo-Norman St John's Parish Church, which was built in 1860, was awarded the 2011 Art in a Religious Context award for its windows by Anne Vibeke Mou and James Hugonin. At the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 194, falling slightly to 191 at the 2011 Census.Originally part of the barony of Baliol, Healey was given over to the Knights Templars in the 1260s (hence the area sometimes referred to as Temple Healey). With the suppression of the Templars the land passed to the monarch in 1308 and then shortly after to the Knight Hospitallars. At the dissolution the land returned to the monarch. By the early 1600s the area was held by the Sanderson family. In 1816 the land was sold to Robert Ormston of Newcastle. His son, also called Robert, took down the remains of the peel house and built Healey Hall. A chapel of ease, St John’s, was built in 1860 to designs by Major C.E. Davis of Bath. The west tower was added in 1890.The vicarage was built in 1877 from designs by Ewan Christian.

Minsteracres is an 18th-century mansion house, now a Christian retreat centre, in Northumberland, England. It is a Grade II listed building.The house was built in 1758 by George Silvertop. Originally erected with two storeys, a third storey was added in 1811 and a new North wing was built in 1865.The Silvertops were a Roman Catholic family. George Silvertop was in 1831 the first Catholic appointed High Sheriff of Northumberland following the repeal of the penal law. His nephew Henry Charles Silvertop, High Sheriff in 1859 built a Catholic chapel adjoining the hall, and dedicated to St Elizabeth of Hungary in 1854. The chapel is a Grade II listed building.The Silvertop family sold the House in 1949 for conversion to a Passionist Monastery. A retreat house was opened in 1967, and in the 1970s links were established with the Selly Park sisters and the Sisters of Mercy from Sunderland. Since 2012 Minsteracres has been run by a charitable trust on behalf of the Passionist community. It describes itself as a "Christian place of prayer with a resident community rooted in the Roman Catholic Passionist tradition".In the early 1960s Consett artist Sheila Mackie painted two large murals Agony in the Garden and The Conversion of Saul, each 40 feet (12 m) by 12 feet (3.7 m) for the Minsteracres retreat house; they were known to still exist in 2010 and are listed in the database PostWar Murals Database, last updated 2013.The east and west lodges, stable block, entrance screen with flanking walls and a group of farm buildings are all separately grade II listed.

Beauclerc is a small village in Northumberland, England. It is situated to the west of Riding Mill, between Hexham and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Edmundbyers is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated a few miles to the west of Consett, near Derwent Reservoir. In 2001 it had a population of 118. The civil parish of Edmondbyers had a population taken at the 2011 Census of 173. Today, the village has a pub, a youth hostel, a church, a village hall and a small shop. A bus service, the 773, serves the village, connecting it to Townfield, Hunstanworth and Consett. There is evidence of prehistoric settlement in the area from the Neolithic era onwards. It is listed in the Boldon Book (1183): "Alan Bruntoft holds Edmundbires for his service in the forest”. However, Bishop Hatfield's survey of c. 1382 shows that the land had been transferred to Durham Cathedral: “The Prior holds the vill of Edmundbires, sometime of Alan Bruntop, by forest service”.The village church, St Edmund's, has evidence of pre-Norman building, but it mainly dates from the 12th century, with renovations from 1859 onwards. The pre-Reformation stone altar was rediscovered and replaced in the church during the restoration. There is a list of rectors beginning with Richard de Kirkeby in 1275 and ending with John Durie, A. M., on 2 July 1629. The incumbents after 1629 have also been in charge of the parish of Muggleswick.A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was erected in 1835. The Primitive Methodists met in a private house. The parish school was erected in 1825.The youth hostel (dated 1936 over the lintel) is made up of three houses built in the mid- to late 18th century.Edmundbyers Cross is one of only three wayside crosses still in its original position in County Durham, and the only known example on the route between Stanhope and Edmundbyers.

Riding Mill is a village near Hexham in Northumberland, England. It is part of the civil parish of Broomhaugh and Riding. It is served by Riding Mill railway station and by a frequent bus service on the route from Hexham to Newcastle. Riding Mill is notable as the location of Riding Mill pumping station. Up until here the water released from Kielder Water uses the River Tyne but at Riding Mill it is pumped to parts of Tyne and Wear and over the hills to Teesside. Leaving the village towards Hexham, Hollin Hill Terrace is situated on the left. Very little information is available on these eight dwellings but they are an example of Victorian architecture. This terrace was not shown on maps of the area prior to 1850, but appear on a map dated between 1850/1894.

Broomhaugh and Riding is a civil parish in Northumberland, England. It includes the villages of Broomhaugh and Riding Mill. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 936, increasing to 966 at the 2011 census.

Broomhaugh is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Broomhaugh and Riding, in Northumberland, in England. It is situated between Hexham and Newcastle upon Tyne, to the south of the River Tyne near Riding Mill, and adjacent to the A695 road. In 1951 the parish had a population of 228.Broomhaugh lies at the eastern edge of the village of Riding Mill. Broomhaugh consists of a mix of stone buildings dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, an Edwardian terrace and two brick-built terraces linked to the development of the railway between Newcastle and Carlisle. The earlier buildings include a former farm house, farm buildings converted into houses and a Methodist chapel and manse. The majority of the housing is located on what local people refer to as "The Street", which runs down to a former ford across the river Tyne. The Street follows the line of a former drovers' road down which cattle were driven from Scotland to the market towns of northern England.

Riding Mill is a railway station on the Tyne Valley Line, which runs between Newcastle and Carlisle via Hexham. The station, situated 16 miles 71 chains (16.9 mi; 27.2 km) west of Newcastle, serves the villages of Broomhaugh and Riding Mill in Northumberland, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.