The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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River Wear
Marble, steel, fake castles and Roman Catholic rebellion mark the Wear river valley landscape.
From the collection of:
Overview
The charming TV presenter Mike Neville is on the road along the River Wear in County Durham, where ships are born and saints were buried. This delightful 1960s travelogue marries evocative landscape photography with historical and documentary insights into industries such as the Frosterley marble quarry and Wolsingham steel works, which is unusually located in a picturesque rural town.
Between 1962 and 1963 Tyne Tees Television broadcast superb documentaries on the rivers and coastline of the North East in a series called Your Heritage. The second part of this travelogue along the River Wear is sadly lost, and would probably have featured the celebrated shipyards of Sunderland. The steel works at Wolsingham were a major employer in Weardale from 1864 until 1984, producing hefty specialized steel castings for shipbuilding, engineering, and, during two World Wars, munitions industries in the North East.
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