Wylam is a small village situated on the banks of the river Tyne in Tynedale in Southern Northumberland. From the twelfth century it belonged to Tynemouth Priory whose monks worked the coal seams around Wylam.The same monks had built a country residence the remains of which are now incorporated into Wylam Hall on the West of the present village. More recent and probably more widely known are Wylam’s links with the birth of the railways, William Hedley the developer of ‘Puffing Billy’ went to school in Wylam; George Stephenson was born in Wylam. Slightly more recently Charles Parsons, of turbine fame, lived for many years at Holeyn Hall on the North of the village. In the nineteenth century Wylam had collieries and even an iron works and was described as a ‘living hell’. Nowadays in common with most towns and villages in easy reach of large conurbations, the population of Wylam comprises almost entirely of commuters and a high proportion of the inhabitants have arrived from beyond Wylam and even beyond the region.
