Unlocking the Archives
Over the 200+ years of Newcastle Antiquaries’ existence, we have accumulated large numbers of documents and archival material. Most of these are lodged with Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn. We have a commitment to make our material wherever possible, and as explained below, part of this is to digitise and transcribe documents of interest.
This website includes images and transcriptions from a number of documents from our archives:
- The 1771 Flood Papers, a bound volume of documents from the relief committee for Northumberland set up after the calamitous floods in North-East England in November 1771, which brought down Newcastle’s medieval bridge and every other bridge on the Tyne except that at Corbridge.
- Relating to the same 1771 flood, the final report of the County Durham Flood Relief Committee
- The 1780-84 Poll Book, a record of the voting in the Newcastle Election of 1780 with additional manuscript notes from the 1784 election, made by the agent for Andrew Stoney Bowes of Gibside in the 1784 Parliamentary election for Newcastle upon Tyne.
- A set of papers and drawings concerning the collapse of the second Hexham Bridge
- A volume of Hexhamshire Wills dating from the 1670s to the end of the reign of Queen Anne.
- Edwarde Potter’s Booke of Phisicke, which dates back to 1610. This has not been transcribed before, though it was studied just over a hundred years ago, in 1917; follow this link for the article in our Proceedings which describes it. The antiquary Rev John Hodgson, also wrote a piece in the Gentlemen’s Magazine in 1835, giving more details; follow this link to see that.
- The Blair Papers, a set of documents with transcriptions acquired by the Society in November 2019, including the membership certificate of our first Honorary member, Bridget Atkinson. .Follow this link for a full listing and explanation of the documents.
- Author’s additions to A History of Corbridge and its Antiquities, Robert Forster, 1881. This volume in the our library has a series of manuscript pages of additional information relating to topics covered in the printed text, intended for use in a second edition that never came about. These additions have been digitised and transcribed, to save people having to handle the delicate pages
The HLF-funded project
In 2017-18 we were given a 
£6,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant for Unlocking the Archives, a project digitising, transcribing and disseminating a number of documents at Woodhorn. to whom much thanks. These were the documents transcribed as part of this;
We also ran two free palaeography classes in conjunction with Explore Lifelong Learning and Durham Record Office, to whom much thanks. We funded Time Bandits, a historical re-enactment group, to run workshops in 16 schools in Northumberland and County Durham about the 1771 Flood. News Bulletin 64, (June 2018) gives a full report.
