New book explores village’s history

Although Cresswell is a small community on the Northumberland coast, it contains a treasure trove of stories dating back more than 10,000 years.
Barry Mead pictured with a copy of his book, Cresswell’s Curiosities.Barry Mead pictured with a copy of his book, Cresswell’s Curiosities.
Barry Mead pictured with a copy of his book, Cresswell’s Curiosities.

And now its history has been compiled into a fascinating book called ‘Cresswell’s Curiosities’ by a local resident – author and England’s Community Archaeologist of the Year Barry Mead.

As a relative newcomer to the village, who has only lived there for 11 years with his wife Jill, he began digging into its rich heritage to unearth its secrets from the past for his book.

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It was, he says, the natural beauty of Druridge Bay and its proximity to Cresswell that drew him and Jill to move there after first living in Whitley Bay when he moved north from his native Luton in the mid-1990s to take over as curator of Woodhorn Church and Colliery museums.

Barry said: “Having spent most of my working career in museums, archaeology and local history, I soon discovered that Cresswell and the surrounding area had a rich heritage going back at least 10,000 years.

“Some of that heritage is plain to see, such as the 14th Century Pele Tower and the Victorian St Bartholomew’s Church.

“But recent local community archaeology projects have helped unearth amazing discoveries that give a fascinating insight into life in Cresswell over many thousands of years, which I have tried to capture in my book.”

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One of the most spectacular of those discoveries was made about three miles from Cresswell at the northern end of Druridge Bay when an archaeology project dubbed ‘Rescued from the Sea’ unearthed a 4,200-year-old burial mound at Low Hauxley, which provided so many clues about the families of hunter-gatherers who were perhaps the first inhabitants of the area.

Since then, community excavations led by Barry himself have uncovered more artefacts which convinced his teams that those same early Northumberland coastal dwellers would, in fact, have also been inhabiting what is now Cresswell village.

In his book, he writes of personally examining layers of black peat uncovered by the shifting sands of Druridge Bay that identified remains of trees carbon-dated to be some 7,000 years old, as well as footprints of red deer, wild boar and those extinct auroch cattle that would have been roaming the area all those years ago.

Moving on a few centuries, Barry traces the history of the family that gave its name to the Cresswell village, who were first recorded as living there in the 1100s.

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By the 14th century, the Cresswells had built one of around 170 Pele Towers, which were constructed almost as miniature castles to afford protection against the fearsome raids of the notorious Border Reivers – who pillaged and marauded their way across Northumberland and southern Scotland for some three centuries.

By the mid-1700s, when the threat from the Reivers had subsided somewhat, William Cresswell chose to convert the spartan Pele Tower into more comfortable living conditions for his family by adding a grand mansion to its northern elevation.

However, the house section only survived until around 1845 when Addison John Cresswell used his wife’s inheritance to build the more palatial Cresswell Hall, designed by London architect John Shaw. There was a plan to turn the hall into a hospital when it was later sold to Northumberland County Council, but that never materialised and it was eventually demolished in the late 1930s.

One of the most notable rescues involving a Cresswell lifeboat when lifeboats were stationed in the village took place on the night of January 5, 1876, as Barry recalls, when the Swedish steamer Gustav ran aground near the village with 14 people on board.

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That night the sea was so wild that the crew found it impossible to launch the OId Potter lifeboat from its station, so men, women and horses dragged the boat for nearly a mile along the beach before they could launch it into the sea. At the same time, the rescuers spotted one of two boats the Gustav carried on board had broken loose and overturned – stranding four sailors in the treacherous waters.

Despite the bitter cold, mountainous seas and gale force winds, local women formed a human chain, with Margaret Brown at its head, to rescue the men, who by that time were clinging to their capsized vessel and were in mortal danger of losing their lives.

For her efforts that night, Margaret Brown was presented with an inscribed brooch and a silver teapot by the lifeboat service, but perhaps more importantly she would forever afterwards be known as the ‘Second Grace Darling’!

The book also includes Barry telling the tale of a haunted Pele Tower and the story of a local lad who became one of the naval heroes of the Second World War. He is donating all proceeds from its sale towards a project now nearing completion to restore the Grade II-listed Cresswell Pele Tower to safeguard its future and remove it from English Heritage’s ‘At Risk’ list.

Copies of ‘Cresswell’s Curiosities’ can be ordered direct from Barry by calling 07986 018242 or emailing [email protected]

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