Heritage is host to royalty

Jun 27 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal

TWO flagship projects which have brought almost £30m of investment in tourism, culture and coastal protection to Northumberland were given the Royal seal of approval yesterday.

Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, called at the Woodhorn Museum and Archives Centre near Ashington before moving on to take a look at developments in the nearby village of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

The former Woodhorn Colliery complex has been given a £17m, lottery-funded revamp to turn it into a major tourist attraction, and £11m was spent by Defra last summer giving Newbiggin a new sandy beach, sea defence breakwater and the UK’s first permanent offshore sculpture, Couple.

At Woodhorn the prince was taken to the gallery showcasing the work of Ashington’s famed Pitmen Painters and met George Laidler, whose father Fred was a member of the group.

After viewing a new exhibition of paintings by another Ashington Group member, Oliver Kilbourn, he officially opened the centre’s new Workshop Galleries, which were created at a cost of £1m.

At Newbiggin, the prince met Rebecca de’Wessington, owner of the Pride of Northumbria coffee shop, who is the first trader to take advantage of a new grants scheme aimed at improving the village’s shop fronts. He was then introduced to representatives of contractors who worked on last summer’s massive maritime engineering project in Newbiggin Bay, before walking along the promenade to Church Point with local schoolchildren lining the route.

The prince met Newbiggin lifeboat officials and then called at the village’s seafront heritage centre.

He spoke to Newbiggin Heritage Partnership chairman Richard Martin about a £3m project to convert the modest operation into a heritage centre celebrating the village’s rich maritime history.

Finally, he was shown the village’s former offshore lifeboat, the Mary Joicey, which will be the centrepiece of the planned maritime centre, and introduced to Tim Martin, the last surviving crew member who sailed the Mary Joicey to Newbiggin in 1966 from the Scottish boatyard where she was built.

Earlier in the day, he had visited Lindisfarne Castle and the priory on Holy Island, as well as the island’s mead winery which has been producing the honey-based drink since 1968.