A History of Corbridge and its Antiquities
Published by the Author Robert Forster
Printed by J. Beall, 32, High Friar Street, Newcastle: 1881
This is a unique volume in our library. It comes from the collection of Philip Brook of Wylam, an amateur local historian and avid collector died in July 2018. Philip was born in the South and qualified as a pharmacist, but then went on to study an area of Town Planning. His widow Barbara kindly donated a number of his books to the Liibrary.
The significance of this volume is that the author has tipped in numerous manuscript pages of additional information relating to topics covered in the printed text, that came to light after publication and before he sent the amended manuscript to his Uncle, Mr W B McQueen, in 1884. The additions were intended for a second edition, but are of importance since this was never published. Follow this link for more information on the author and the publication, written by the late Howard Cleeve for the Library blog in 2019..
There is another copy of the History in the Library and reference can be made to this, or members may borrow that copy to read the detailed story of the town from its very earliest reference. In the case of Forster’s own copy it was felt that all the additions should be digitised and transcribed, and then given public access, to avoid the rather delicate volume being handled on numerous occasions.
This file includes images of all the tipped-in pages, and transcriptions. Our thanks to Howard Cleeve and Denis Peel for providing transcriptions, and to Howard and Sue Ward for the editorial work.
Below is a link to the images and transcriptions of each manuscript page (in two parts, because of the size of each file)
History of Corbridge and its Antiquities part 1, images and transcriptions.
History of Corbridge and its Antiquities part 2, images and transcriptions
