Newburn

The only battle fought in Tyne and Wear

Newburn's ford was, for centuries, the first place upstream of Newcastle where the Tyne could be crossed — which is exactly why, on 28 August 1640, it became a battlefield. A Scottish Covenanter army of around 20,000, led by General Alexander Leslie, faced a much smaller and poorly prepared English royalist force under Lord Conway. The Scots, holding the high ground north of the river, routed the English in a matter of hours and crossed the Tyne, going on to occupy Newcastle itself.

A skirmish with enormous consequences

By taking Newcastle, the Scots seized control of the coal supply that heated London, forcing King Charles I to the negotiating table. The resulting Treaty of Ripon required Charles to pay the occupying army's expenses — money he could only raise by summoning Parliament for the first time in eleven years. That Parliament, the "Long Parliament," would go on to challenge Charles's authority so completely that, within two years, England was at civil war. The Battle of Newburn Ford remains the only registered battlefield anywhere in Tyne and Wear.

A working river village

Long before and after 1640, Newburn also had its own quieter history as a working Tyneside village, with coal staithes, ironworks and, from 1889, one of the earliest electricity companies in the country extending its supply out from Newcastle. The old parish church still stands on the rise above the river, overlooking the water meadows where the battle was fought.