A dozen volunteers from the Village Trust scoured the conservation area for litter this morning and managed to find plenty to collect. Though there appeared to be less litter than last year.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Annual Litter Pick
March 25, 2023Shotley Grove Walks
October 20, 2021With the help of the Kiln Pit Hill Wind Farm Community Fund, the Tyne Rivers Trust has been able to install two interpretation boards at Shotley Grove next to the fish pass and boardwalk. They would love to show you the new boards and tell you about the work they have done on the River Derwent, the volunteering opportunities available and other projects throughout the Tyne catchment.
Please join them for an hour or so on the following dates:
Saturday 23rd October at 11am
Saturday 6th November at 11am
Meet on the green bridge by Shotley Grove car park.
Please email s.price@tyneriverstrust.org for further details or to confirm your attendance.
Fund raising with Amazon
October 10, 2020The Village Trust has joined the AmazonSmile programme, so as to allow our members and supporters to donate whilst shopping online.
If you shop at Amazon you will now be able to raise additional funds for our charity, at no extra cost to you or the Trust.
Just follow this link next time you intend shopping at Amazon to set up your account in favour of donations to the Shotley Bridge Village Trust.
Stained Glass Windows
October 10, 2020St Cuthbert’s Church on Church Bank is well known architecturally as a John Dobson masterpiece. But few know about its wonderful stained glass windows, that were a gift of donors to remember those who have worshipped at the church or lived and/or worked in the parish.
Paul Heatherington has recently published an illustrated guide about the windows. The booklet offers helpful explanations of the scriptural background and religious meaning of the various windows. It also provides information about some of the people in whose memory the windows were produced. If you wish to purchase a copy email him at paul@heatherington.me
Copies are also on sale for £5 at Cafe Shrub, in the Land of Oak & Iron Heritage Centre at Winlaton Mill.
Shotley Bridge Sword Makers
September 9, 2020Keith Fisher, a north east historian, has been researching sword making for many years and has now published his research.
He has kindly given the Village Trust a compressed .pdf version of his book to post as a free download.
If you prefer a hard copy it can also be acquired as a fine book, purely for the printing cost of £15.00, and will be available from Newcastle Cloth Market print-shop Photoline: call 0191 232 5454 to order; the book can be collected, or posted to you [in a stiff cardboard package] for an additional £5. [NB: The resolution of the images has been reduced to allow it to be downloaded, while images in the hard copy book are much more detailed.]
Keith explains:
“A request from my friend Yvonne Young (who is a local historian, lecturer and publisher of books on North Eastern heritage) to suggest a topic she could use at men’s clubs and associations, prompted me to give her David Richardson’s famous book on the German swordmakers of Shotley Bridge.
As I attempted to precis the book for her, and studied others like it, I realised this was a huge story that could finally be fully researched given modern information access.
As the story grew it became obvious there were all the ingredients for a TV documentary and I pursued my research with this end in view. None-the-less, the story makes a splendid local history book; so while we wait for TV production to resume, I have converted my research into just such a narrative.
Ultimately, it will end up as a national companion publication to the TV documentary, but until then I am making it freely available to all interested parties, in particular the residents of the Derwent Valley.”
Revised version 8 uploaded 18/7/22.
Note: The title of the book has been changed from “The Sword in the Hat” – Shotley Bridge and the Bushy Tailed Fox
Street Tree Volunteers
January 17, 2019At the last open meeting of the Village Trust there was a presentation on the ‘Street Trees project’ being delivered by CEED, in partnership with OASES.
6 schools have now taken part in surveying trees around their areas and CEED are now looking for volunteers to help with local surveys of trees.
CEED will be producing a Survey Pack containing all the necessary information to help volunteers survey their local street/s. There will also be some informal training on tree identification and how to undertake the surveys for those who need it.
Any help from volunteers will be valuable to this project – whether they can survey one small patch or several streets – all data will be very much appreciated.
Surveying is probably best done once there are leaves on the trees, but if volunteers are confident with winter tree I.D then there is no need to wait.
If you are interested please contact susan@ceedcharity.com
Christmas Tree Lights
December 1, 2018The village Christmas tree in ‘The Triangle’ was switched on this evening but without ceremony.
It had not been possible to arrange a carol service for this year but it is hoped that the Shotley Bridge Primary School children will be present to sing carols next year.
Thank you again to our local County Councillors for providing the tree and lights from their Neighbourhood Budget.
AGM & Open Meeting
June 5, 2017The Trust’s AGM is to be held on Tuesday 20th June at 7pm followed at 7.45 by an Open Meeting for members and residents, with a talk from the charity AgeUK.
Geoffrey Fisher
January 2, 2017The Trust was sad to hear of the death of Geoffrey Fisher in December.
Geoffrey was a founder member of the Village Trust and for many years was the secretary. He made a huge contribution to the work of the Trust, particularly through his interest in and knowledge of architecture and the history of Methodism.
His enthusiasm and contribution to our activities will be greatly missed.
Judging complete
July 20, 2015This morning, judges from Northumbria in Bloom walked around the conservation area with volunteers from Blooming Shotley Bridge.
They seemed impressed with the floral decorations, sustainable planting, heritage initiatives and wildlife areas. The clean streets, lack of litter and dog fouling was also admired. Thanks to all the volunteers, residents, businesses, the Junior School and County Council for their efforts in putting on a good show.
Competition results will not be known until September.
Infant & Junior Schools to merge
January 12, 2015Having considered the views of those who responded, the County Council has taken a decision to move to the next stage in the process which is to issue a statutory notice proposing to change the age range of Shotley Bridge Infant School from 4-7 to 4-11 with effect from 1 September 2015 to create a Primary School.
Linked to this is a proposal to close Shotley Bridge Junior School as a separate school with effect from 31 August 2015.
Have a look at the consultation document.
Village Centre Improvements
June 3, 2014Although 8 months since the public exhibition in the King’s Social Club last September, Durham County Council are now making progress on spending the S106 funding for environmental improvement schemes in the village centre.
The dilapidated bus shelters have just been replaced with two new ones. S106 money had been used for demolition of the stone shelter and new tarmac base whilst Public Transport has funded the new glass shelters.
Costs and designs will be known later this month for the reconstruction of the original Pant [drinking fountain] and new seating area opposite Rumi’s. This is the first priority of 6 schemes that were agreed at a meeting of Stakeholders in February. If there is sufficient funding, the second and third priorities are conservation street lighting and coping stones for the flower bed opposite the Golden flower.
Christmas arrives tomorrow …
November 29, 2013… in Shotley Bridge. Father Christmas arrives by horse & carriage at 10am accompanied by Colin Briggs, BBC Look North regional newsreader.
See my previous post for the full programme and the offers from the participating businesses.
Willow Burn update
April 11, 2013At the Open Meeting on Tuesday, Sue Fox was hoping to announce good news for Willow Burn but an embargo until yesterday prevented her from doing so.
She has now let us know that the hospice has been successful in being granted an award of £356,438 from the Department of Health which will enable them to begin building Phase 1 of the new hospice in July of this year.
One of the main reasons they have got this fabulous injection of cash, is because, through the application procedure, they were able to evidence the continued commitment of the local community in helping them to continue to run their excellent services year-on-year, and also to help them to save up a substantial amount of money to go towards the building of a new hospice. Sue also says that …
“Although this is fantastic news, and we can at last demonstrate our integrity and loyalty to ensuring that we deliver the very best of services in a fit for purpose facility to the local populace…we can’t sit on our laurels. Please spread the word that we need more support than ever now, as Phase 2 is twice the cost of Phase 1 and so we have many hard months, maybe even years, ahead, where we will be continuing to fundraise to try to ensure the speedy development of the new hospice. For now, though, it is suffice to say that we are extremely happy that we have been awarded this fabulous sum of money. Again, our sincere thanks to everyone who has supported Willow Burn in the past and brought us to this huge milestone – the initial stages of building a brand new hospice for the people of Derwentside and beyond!”
If you would like to find out more about helping Willow Burn, have a look at the web site for the Derwentside Hospice Care Foundation.
Derwent Valley Landscape
March 17, 2013There is to be an open public consultation event to discuss the Derwent Valley Landscape Partnership National Lottery bid at Citizens House in Consett on Wednesday 20th March at 4:30- 6:30. The aim of the event is to find out what local people would like to see happening in the Derwent Valley area as part of this bid.
Along with partners, Groundwork North East are developing this bid. The aim is to secure up to £3 million to help to protect and develop the cultural, natural and industrial heritage of the Derwent Valley, increasing visitors and improve the environment for people and wildlife. Groundwork are currently in the early stages of developing the funding bid and want to make sure that it represents what the local communities in the area want. [Click on the poster to enlarge.]
Groundwork also has just launched an online survey about the project at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/derwentvalleynortheast
Silver Award
September 11, 2012Today, ‘Blooming Shotley Bridge’ were presented with a ‘Silver’ award in the village category of the 2012 Northumbria in Bloom competition.
Thank you to the organising committee of the Village Trust, all the volunteers, local businesses, councillors and residents who helped make this award possible.
Photo competition ends this month
September 4, 2012This is the last month for entering the Trust’s photo competition, with entries closing on 30/9/2012.
This year the theme is “Sports, Games and Outdoor Activities in Shotley Bridge”. Have a look at the competition poster and rules.
Here again are the winning entries from the 2011 competition …
[click to enlarge]
Final preparations for the Torch
June 16, 2012Before the torch arrived the sponsors handed out freebies to the crowd and entertained them for a while. The bus with the torch bearers set off ahead of the sponsors convoy and the arrival of the flame from Northumberland, whilst service buses had police escorts through the crowds.
Open meeting
February 1, 2012The next open meeting will be held in the Junior School hall on Thursday 23rd February at 7.30pm. Refreshments will be available from 7.15pm.
Presentations will be made to the photo competition prizewinners and Willow Burn, following the charity collection made during the Victorian Christmas Spectacular.
A Night at the Races
January 18, 2012This year the Trust has entered the village in ‘Northumbria in Bloom‘ and volunteers will be planting the trough and tubs with summer bedding in June.
On Saturday March 10th, the Village Trust are holding a social event at the YMCA to raise funds in aid of ‘Blooming Shotley Bridge‘. Local businesses are sponsoring the event.
Tickets are available from the Trust’s secretary. Please email: sbvt@singleton14.eclipse.co.uk.
[Click on the poster to enlarge]
Shotley Bridge Village Trust 