Farm consisting of a dwelling house, with dairy and pantry, a two-roomed cottage, barn, granary, cart shed, 2 piggeries, hay house, turnip house, loose box, 5 feeding boxes, 2 calf hutches, 4-stall cattle byre, 2-stall stable and 4-stall stable, hen house and implement shed. It had 144.69 acres of arable and pasture land. Sold by Auction August 1920 (NRO CLAs 99/1).

Shown on Newburn Hall Tithe Award of 1848 (NRO DT 342 M). Owner was the Duke of Northumberland and the occupier John Arthur. On a plan of 1849 (NRO ZAN Bell 71/4) part of the farm was in the Newburn Hall township and part in the Whorlton township. Farm is of sandstone rubble with slate roof and moulded cast iron gutters. A valuers report of 1852 listed the farm as comprising a dwelling house, coal house, privy, ash pit, boiling house, shed and yard. The outbuildings are all modern structures, built of stone and covered with blue slate. The horse course is covered with pantiles.

Visited in 1986. Farmstead at that time consisted of 7 elements. A 4-arch hovel of rubble walls with ashlar quoins and cast iron pillars on the ground floor. A single storey stone rubble building divided into boxes with stable doors. A ruined piggery - the west gable retained detail of stone water table, kneelers and finial. A stone building divided by timber and concrete partitions into loose boxes. A long stone range with ventilation slits, central door and one blocked door at north end, 3 blocked windows and stalls with wooden partitions. A farm building which is incorporated into the house. The farmhouse is white-washed. It has dormer windows beneath the gables with ball finials. It has a slate roof and decorative ridge cresting.

Visited in 1986. Farm buildings are on 3 sides of a yard with a gap at the SW corner and no range on the east side. The farmhouse is detached. The gate has fine stone posts. The house is 2-storey, built of stone with random ashlar. It has a slate roof, ceramic ridge, sash windows and a rather grand south door beneath an arched recess and two brick chimney stacks. There is a single story stone stable with slate roof. It has a cement floor and few internal fittings. A number of blocked or converted openings and a surviving brick partition. An ashalr byre with 6 double stalls for 2 cows each. A 2-storey stone rubble cart shed with 2 arches. A hay loft above. A single storey byre, originally a threshing barn. A stone circular gingan. The slates had gone but the timber roof remained. The gingan and large byre seem earlier than the adjoining cartshed. This could be because the farmer converted from arable to dairy farming, converting the threshing barn to a byre. The house was a late addition, perhaps paid for with compensation received for losing arable land to local builders, and presumably replacing an older property.

A very restored farm. 2-storey stone rubble with pantile roof. The 2 upper south windows have traces of a central mullion and monolithic jambs. The lintels of the lower 2 have been renewed. Brick chimney in east gable. The west gable is constructed of triangular stones in the edges. The barn and house, though now continuous, appear awkwardly joined together. The lower part of the south wall is boulder-like and looks earlier and different. A linear farm? Cart shed - single arch with window on each side. Stone rubble with asbestos roof. Mid 18th century with alterations. Sandstone rubble with large quoins. Roof renewed with pantiles. Chamfered stone surrounds renewed casements with glazing bars; low gable parapet formed by irregular stones. Interior said to contain heck post, screen and settle to fireside in kitchen. Seats to splayed windows in all rooms. Chimney in ground floor has corniced mantel shelf over wide square stone chimney-piece. LISTED GRADE 2

This glasshouse is recorded as standing in 1692 by Brand. The Henzell and Tyzack families worked a glasshouse here from as early as 1686. Broad glass was the main product. For some years before 1772, the broad glasshouse was worked by Matthew Ridley and Co. The date of the transfer of the business from the Henzell and Tyzacks to the Ridleys was between 1754 and 1760. In 1772, Ridley and Co converted the glasshouse into a plate glass factory. In June 1773 the glasshouse was badly damaged by fire. Plate glass was not being made at Howdon in 1776, because there was only one plate glasshouse on the Tyne at that time, Cooksons (HER 2340). A reference to Joseph Tyzack, broad glass maker, in 1781, suggests that the old manufacture was restarted. If the works were rebuilt after the fire, they were no longer under Ridley's auspices. Sir Matthew Ridley was M.P. for Morpeth. His fire-stone quarries at Blyth supplied the glass industry.

Industrial production of glass was commenced on Tyneside by Sir Robert Mansell, Treasurer of the Navy and later Vice-Admiral of England, in 1617. National restrictions had been imposed on the use of wood as a fuel for glassmaking, and an alternative form of fuel, coal, was available on the Tyne. Sand for glassmaking was brought to the Tyne as ballast. Mansell prospered and by 1624 had an output of 6,000 to 8,000 cwts of finished glassware per year and three glasshouses on the original site. He made bottles, window glass, mirror glass, tumblers and spectacle glass. In 1623 Mansell was granted the sole right to carry on the glass industry in England. The glass produced was said to be cloudy and poor quality but Mansell's monopoly lasted until the civil war when others entered the field. Sir Robert Mansell died in 1653 but the Mansell family remained in business until 1679, when the glasshouses changed hands (see HER 1913-5).

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. Glass waste including cyclinder edge pieces, offcuts from quarry cutting, glaziers waste was found west of the town wall during excavations at Close Gate in 1989.

In 1693 William (or Wilhelm) Bertram, a steelmaker from Remscheid in Germany, was shipwrecked and stranded on the north Durham coast. A few years later he was reported to be charge of steelmaking at a furnace in Newcastle, possibly owned by Hayford. Evidence suggests that the works were in the region of The Close. R.R. Angerstein left a sketch of this area in 1753. Bertram later transferred to Blackhall Mill (HER 1017). The furnace at Newcastle was let to a Mr Hall before 1753. He acquired a second furnace of a similar size, presumably on the same site. It measured 132 inches x 32 inches x 22 inches, each chest holding 5 tons of iron. The charcoal used was from juniper or alder (unusual choice). Firing lasted from 5 to 6 days and used £2 worth of coal. The two workers each received 7s 6d per week. The furnaces between them consumed about 150 tons annually of Dannemora iron, costing £21 per ton. Fifteen years later the steel from Newcastle and Blackhall Mill still held the reputation of being the best in England. Robsahm's account of 1761 reports on the activities of Mr Hodgson of The Close, Newcastle, who had a foundry and some steel furnaces. Angerstein had associated Derwentcote furnace with the name of Hodgson eight years previously. By 1811 the Newcastle furnaces were in the care of the Cookson family. In 1851 T. Cookson and Company are listed as steelmakers in The Close and at Forth Banks. In 1853 they are only listed as ironfounders at South Street. On the 1863 list they are only listed at Derwentcote. There is a foundry shown on The Close on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. It can only be concluded that the Newcastle furnace was abandoned between 1851 and 1853.

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map.