Events Dear All
This page is designed to show information and reviews of 'one off' events organised by any Wessington u3a member and are open to all. The topics and themes are not linked to a specific group, or maybe the activity spans across various group interests.
Events Dear All - For All
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2023
FLOORS CASTLE ANNUAL OUTING - July 5th
What a wonderful day we had last week at Floors Castle. The weather behaved itself and we even saw some sunshine. The tour round the Castle was a delight. So many beautiful treasures to see and history to hear about. It is the family home of the Roxburghe Family and is still used as their family home today.
It was so good to walk around the estate and walked garden with our friends from Wessington u3a.
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Thank you to Chris our coach driver for looking after us so well and for the beautiful comfortable coach.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and made it such an enjoyable day.
Sally Russell
09/07/23
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North East Mining Institute/The Common Room - Organised by Margaret Welsh
Margaret, thank you our lass, arranged a visit to The Common Room/North East Mining and Mechanical Engineering Institute in Neville St just down from Newcastle Central Station, There were 14 attenders and we were guided around the wonderful building by Christine, an articulate and well-informed Newcastle City Guide. The Lecture Theatre has photos of all the Presidents and they, I’m pleased and slightly astonished to note, include a current member of Wessington u3a – up there on the wall with Lord Armstrong of Cragside and Sir Nicholas Wood, to name but two! Exalted company!
The coffee bar is excellent and open to all. The loos, like the rest of the building, have been refurbished as part of a £4m Lottery Grant but are not a patch on the Gents in the Lit and Phil. I can’t comment on the Ladies.
The building was originally opened in about 1870 at a cost of £20,000 which had taken some time to collect, coal owners of the North East being notoriously hard-up…
If you want to see a chandelier made out of miners’ lamps this is the place for you…if you like coal mining maps…if your heart soars at the sight of minerals…if you want to see a lego representation of the building you are in…
The Wood Hall, upstairs, has a barrel roof, wonderful stained glass, bookshelves full of mining and mineralogy books ….and the Tyne River God and a current member of the Wessington U3A keep an eye on all of it...so you’ll be OK.
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The library is open (and that’s where I came across this, sadly not perfect, photo of a last note scratched with a nail by a miner who’d been trapped underground in an explosion at Heaton Colliery, ‘Close the Coalhouse Door, lad, there’s blood inside’) and if you have any interest in mining you can pop in but making an appointment allows the staff (Jennifer is the staff) to get out for you material relevant to what you are studying or just have a passing interest in. Be careful – archives can exert a strange fascination and then you find yourself heading down wormholes that you didn’t know existed and can escape only after making various incantations to the aforementioned Tyne River God...or John Humphries.
Pop in, have a look, it’s open to all for just a wander around and then have a think about the Lit and Phil next door – different building but better loos (Gents) and even more books...
Peter Welsh
06/05/23
A photo gallery of the tour.
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A very interesting, enlightening and enjoyable experience. Please check out their website:- thecommonroom.org.uk
Address: Neville hall, Westgate Road Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE