In the past, hundreds of people would stand and pass its walls and never realise. This cellar (pictured) was beneath the Grand Hotel and in 1932 William Harvey was the drayman. He first came to the premises in about 1916.

Mr Harvey had first worked as a drayman for four years with Bass & Co Ltd, then worked for 12 years with the Victoria Breweries.

I am surprised because I assume that everyone already knows what a proggie mat is. Then I realise that it is just one of those items or expressions that you grew up with totally unaware that there is another world beyond the borders of County Durham and Northumberland where people don't speak Geordie.

If you are a Geordie then you already know and no doubt your mother made them or had them made for her by a female relative, and it probably was the thing you wiped your feet on when you came in from the back yard or garden when your byeuts [boots] were aal covered in clarts.

He was buried at Seaton Hirst churchyard. His four footballer sons, George, Jack, James and Stan, acted as underbearers.

The Milburn family in the 1950s

Tanner Milburn was a well-known sportsman, but his first and foremost love was football. His death, at the age of 62 years, was, therefore, a great loss to this sport.

Ashington began football in the North Eastern League in the 1914-15 season.

Ashington in 1914

In the previous season they were champions of the Northern Alliance, and before that, they were runners-up in 1905-06, 1910-11 and 1911-12.

Although born in Scotland in February, 1891, Dicky McFadden was still very young when he moved to Ashington. He began working at Ashington Colliery at an early age and, as a junior footballer, he played for Ashington Black Watch and Hirst St John's.

His first professional engagement was with Newburn, but as Blyth Spartans meant more convenient travelling for him he signed for them at the start of the 1910-11 season.

Early tradesmen from Ashington pit, 1923. Edward Main could well have known these men

He retired from Ashington Colliery in 1942 after 54 years of underground work.

Taylor was a soldier when he met Beatrice, who was eventually to become his second wife. After leaving the Army he rejoined soon after the beginning of the First World War, and became a sergeant's instructor.

Ellington in 1900. This is how the area would have looked at the time of the murder, surrounded by fields and farming.

They came to Ellington to begin a new life together with Taylor's son from his previous marriage and two daughters, Norah and Lilian. Taylor, who was addicted to drink, soon got a job at nearby Ellington Colliery as a rolleywayman, underground. Jealousy and drink was a problem with the relationship and many heated arguments occurred.

Tom retired after nearly 40 years, in February 1968, and was a familiar figure in the town doing his work as a council refuse foreman.

The old milk delivery method - by horse and cart in 1921

Tom supervised the cleanliness of Ashington's streets and would be seen dressed in his khaki overalls doing his job.

The late Mr Joshua Locke had died in 1920 at North Seaton Colliery while acting as under-manager. His son Joseph Locke died in a very tragic manner in November 1924, and had only been about five years working at Cambois School. He was respected by all classes, and his funeral was the largest that had ever left the village for the churchyard.

The guests came from all the company's collieries, from the head office and from the Blyth shipping office. Sir Leonard Milburn, chairman of the company presided.

Harmony was provided by Mr Shephard, surface engineer, who sang The Sergeant Major, and Mr Arthur Tait, with a violin solo, both having to respond to enthusiastic encores.

They had left home to have a picnic at Sheepwash on the banks of the River Wansbeck. Other families were there and the boys played football.

View of Sheepwash on the banks of the River Wansbeck in 1930s

The ball was accidentally kicked into the river, and Edward Broom, who had his bathing costume on, decided to go into the river and get it. He got the ball but for some reason swam to the other side of the river. On his arrival at the opposite side of the river, he walked a short distance and decided to swim back. About half way across he became exhausted and cried out for help.

Hair, the son of a Tanner, born in Scotswood, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, grew up along the industrialised banks of the River Tyne. Here, as a young man, he first began to learn about painting and drawing whilst working for a local engraver and lithographer. By the age of eighteen he had developed a fascination for the industrial landscape that surrounded him and had already began touring the North East coalfields, sketching scenes above and below the ground, vividly portraying the conditions of working life at that time in the region.

Liz Ritson, Woodhorn's Events and Exhibitions Officer, said, "The Collection will be of interest to so many people. It is not just an amazing documentation of the region's industrial heritage, the individual images evoke the conditions of the people who lived and worked in the mining communities."

"Aside from the industrial aspect to the paintings, visitors will also appreciate the skill of Hair as an artist," explained Liz. "There's a delicacy to the work that you might not expect with the subject matter. You won't have to be interested in the region's history to enjoy that."

The collection is currently on loan from Newcastle University's Hatton Gallery, and will remain on display until 5pm June 12th.

It was a primitive yet a very efficient contraption, and throughout the length and breadth of the district it was called Wheatley's Ferry.

On any day you cared you could take a bus from North Blyth to Brown's Farm and take the path in a northerly direction for a matter of three or four hundred yards till you came to a time-worn track.

Not only were sports and other activities organised but as in other old mining communities there was a strong religious feeling, with a marked preference towards Methodism, and an old stable that stood on the west of Bothal Terrace was converted into a meeting place.

High Market, Ashington in 1911

The first fairground was on land now occupied by the aged miners' cottages to the rear of High Market, and a feature of the earliest merry-go-rounds was a massive steam engine which supplied the power.

In recent research, we find that two lists of Pele Towers were prepared, one in 1415 and another in 1541, and in 1415 there were 115, whilst the number had increased considerably by the later date.

The reason they were built was the great antipathy which existed between the Scots and the English.

In times previous to the reigns of Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III, that antipathy was not so strong, although there was a national feeling, but afterwards raids from each side of the Border were frequent, and whilst great castles were built as a national protection, the Pele Towers were raised by the smaller people, not only for the defence of cattle and stock, but for the defence of their own lives.