The current population is around 300,000 almost half of whom live in South East Northumberland in less than five per cent of the County's total area.   A former industrial area based on the Northumberland coalfield, the south east of the County is rapidly changing mainly because of the decline in deep coal mining.   The other half of the population lives in the many picturesque market towns and villages in rural Northumberland.   This area contains as wide a variety of scenery as is to be found in any part of the British Isles.

England's Border Country is rich in the reminders of its tempestuous history.   Since the days of the Romans, Northumberland has been a border territory separating the land of the Britons from the land of the Picts.   For 400 years from the time of Edward I until the Union of Parliaments in

Ancient iron age forts on remote hill tops in the Northern Cheviots.  The Roman Wall, built by the Emperor Hadrian around 120 AD, together with excavated Roman forts such as those in Housesteads, Chesters and Vindolanda.  Lindisfarne Abbey, Hexham Abbey and the site of the battle of Heavenfield, all reminders of the days when Northumberland was the cradle of English Christianity in the 7th century AD.  The many relics of the fierce years of border fighting including Otterburn and Flodden battlefields, the unforgettable castles at Bamburgh, Alnwick, Lindisfarne, Warkworth, Dunstanburgh and Prudhoe and the unique town walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It appears that this branch of the Hindmarsh family spent more than 80 years in the village of Bedlington.   Almost all the men worked in the mines - some began as children and remained after the age of sixty.   It is interesting to note that