The History Of Ingram Valley.

The Breamish Valley contains an amazing concentration of prehistoric hillforts. These enclosures, made of earth and stone ramparts around a central area, were built by ancient Britons 2,300 years ago. They were built in a landscape already rich in the monuments of the people who had lived here before. Each hillfort seems to sit in its own territory, separated from its neighbour. In many of the hillforts, including Brough Law, Middle Dean and Wether Hill, you can see faint circles on the ground that are the remains of their timber roundhouses. The surrounding hillsides are covered in cultivation terraces on which our ancestors grew crops, and also scattered over the hills are burial cairns that date to the Bronze Age (4,000 years ago). Surprisingly there had been very few archaeological excavations here before the 1990s when Northumberland National Park Authority set up the Breamish Valley Archaeological Project.

Turners’ shop on Blackett Street In Newcastle May 1953.

These fantastic images of Newcastle upon Tyne taken in the 1950s and 60s were taken by employees of Turners’s Ltd. This popular photographic business stemmed from when Jack Turner, who ran a chemist shop, made the bold move to start selling cameras in 1932. Turners, by all accounts, had an excellent reputation and were commissioned by local businesses to take photos of their products and premises.

It had shops on Pink Lane, Eldon Square, Blackett Street and Clayton Street in Newcastle, as well as branches in Whitley Bay, South Shields and Darlington. Despite its relative success and popularity in the North East of England, Turners began to scale down its services in the 1980s and gradually began closing its stores.

By 1988, all its shops and photographic labs had gone.

The photos in this Flashbak collection are all courtesy of the Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.