Latest news with #CheviotHills
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Mystery trolley sparks Northumberland mountain rescue search
A call to police about an abandoned wheeled-trolley bag sparked a multi-team mountain rescue bag, filled with outdoor walking equipment, was discovered by a walker on the Pennine Way near the Cheviot Hills on Friday, Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team (NNPMRT) temperatures in the days prior sparked concerns it could have belonged to a walker in distress, perhaps dehydrated and in search of from England and Scotland were deployed but then a social media search led to information that the walker, who was safe and well, had abandoned the trolley because it was broken. Emergency crews were alerted just after 09:00 BST and, as writing on the bag initially seemed to provide a name and address, this was passed to Police said no relevant missing person reports were found and a "limited response" was initiated involving volunteers from the Border Search and Rescue Unit, North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team and NNPMRT. "Then, the power of social media kicked in and within a few hours, the leads started to roll in," NNPMRT said.A number of sightings of a man earlier in the week pulling and carrying a trolley were confirmed in Wooler, Hethpool and then on the Pennine Way over Auchope Cairn, the team was also suggested the trolley had broken and that the scrawled message was "cart broken" and not a person's said the "real breakthrough" came in the evening when a local builder confirmed he had given a walker a lift from near Kidlandlee to Alnwick and a shop in the town confirmed a man had been in to buy a both cases, the walker mentioned he had ditched his trolley in the before 19:00, officers confirmed the man had been traced and was eager to have his trolley and its contents back."Whilst the incident was wholly avoidable, we are very glad the walker is safe," NNPMRT said. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Wooler children's playground reopens after 177 bombs removed
For decades, generations of children have had a blast tearing round a Northumberland park and playground, all the while oblivious to a cache of World War Two bombs buried beneath them. How did the devices get there and why did no-one know?Steven Parkinson had just begun work in January installing new equipment at Scotts Park in Wooler, a town encircled by the rolling Cheviot he was digging, his eye caught something in the ground that was "a bit suspicious"."It was quite a shock because it definitely looked like a bomb, but we didn't know if it was live or anything," he remembers with a small chuckle. Steven's company got in touch with the clerk of Wooler Parish Council, Kerren Rodgers, but the find was equally baffling to the authority."Dealing with a suspected bomb in a playground is not exactly something they cover in the clerk's manual," she says with a wry smile, "but we sealed off the site straight away."Wooler councillor Mark Mather recalls: "It was almost exciting."I went along to the site and it definitely looked like a bomb, but obviously at that point nobody had any idea of the extent of what we were going to find." Listen on BBC Sounds: How a Northumberland playground gave up its WW2 secrets An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team arrived from Catterick Garrison and confirmed it was indeed a bomb from World War Two but, thinking it was an isolated find, renovations resumed the next another device surfaced. As with any building work, finding evidence of past life and indiscretions is not uncommon, especially in town Tan, from the Association of Play Industries, says he has found "vintage whisky bottles, railway sleepers, barbed wire, sex toys and a gun, but never bombs" while installing play today would usually check if there had been "any military or industrial activities on the site" he says. They would also do dig tests and CAT (Cable Avoidance Tool) scans, but in the 1980s, when the park was first installed, "health and safety standards would have been very different"."I don't think anyone is to blame, they were just really, really unlucky." In Wooler, the decision was taken to call in Brimstone, one of a handful of companies in the UK which specialises in the removal of wartime it was founded in 2016 its staff have removed more than 200,000 items from sites across the UK, so associate director Adam Tanner says he has learnt "not to be surprised by anything in this job". Brimstone began with "delicate hand digging" around the initial pit and, over a two-day period, found a further 90 practice bombs which were used to train and drill bomber crews and pilots. They were not live, but did carry a charge. "What we noticed is that they were uniformly placed and stacked in rows," Adam says. "It was clearly done carefully and deliberately." Brimstone was to spend a further three weeks at the playpark, using a handheld detector to survey the whole site and uncovering a huge amount of scrap metal alongside a final total of 177 bombs. One theory was the bombs had been buried by the Home Guard, a British volunteer military organisation set up to defend against potential German invasion. But Alan Sture, from Glendale Local History Society, believes it could have been the work of regular soldiers. "This was a really important training area for the military and well defended," he says."There were 2,000 military personnel stationed at RAF Milfield north of Wooler alone." Alan is also sure there was an ordnance depot on the site during the war, with deliveries of munitions and supplies arriving via a spur from the Alnwick to Cornhill railway short stretch of track and the depot buildings are visible in a 1948 aerial photograph and are described in archive interviews with locals Mattie Fairnington and Maurice Hardy who were teenagers during the war. In the 1981 recordings made by Glendale Local History Society the pair discuss their memories of "loads of troops coming and going" and "an ordnance depot" on Scotts Park. "You know the part that's the playground now," Maurice Hardy says. "That was all fenced off.""There was a lot of heavy stuff always coming in," Mattie Fairnington adds. Further evidence of military use of the site came from researchers at Brimstone who identified wartime prefabricated metal structures known as Nissan huts. Weapons were stockpiled in huge quantities during the conflict and then had to be disposed of, with much just dumped in the Alexander, professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, says there was "millions of tonnes of unwanted ordnance all round the world" and "health and safety just didn't exist" in a period of post-war exhaustion, as Prof Alexander explains: "It would just have been 'let's get rid of it'."I mean, bombs had been going off for six years." Colin Durward, who runs Blyth Battery, a set of wartime defensive structures on the Northumberland coast, says he "wasn't surprised at all" when he heard about the bombs buried in museum has many practice bombs dug up across the county. "Some of the old soldiers used to tell us stories of what they buried at the end of the war," he says."Things like a 3-inch mortar nobody wanted and thousands, probably millions, of rounds of ammunition."There was just tonnes of it stuck in the ground." The park reopens later and, for councillor Mark Mather, born and bred in Wooler, it is a "huge relief". "This was my local playpark, I was one of the kids running around on top of those bombs, just nine inches below my feet. "It's been such an emotional roller-coaster."I don't think we'll ever find out for sure who put them there, or why, but I'm just so glad they're no longer down there." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
The Guardian
07-06-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: This hardy survivor is brightening up the moors
From high on the Allendale moors, I can see right to the Scottish border and the soft blue outline of the Cheviot Hills. Below me, the West Allen Valley holds deeper colours, the land green and bounded with stone walls or dotted with small woods. Shadows thrown by the early evening light pick out every feature: streams, cleughs, barns and farms, mining spoil and ruins – a record of the land. The wind is warm, buffeting the cottongrass that stretches across the boggy ground and along the roadside ditch. It's a boom year for this beautiful plant, perhaps due to the dry spring putting the plants under stress. A sedge rather than a grass, Eriophorum angustifolium flourishes in its harsh moorland environment, sending out underground rhizomes where few other plants will grow; a line of snow poles shows what the winters are like. The plant's ability to survive here gives it the alternative name of bog cotton. Today, the wind sets every fluffy seedhead in bobbing motion, dancing with light like the choppy scintillations of waves. The discreet greenish flowers could be easily missed. It's those downy cottonwool plumes that enable wind dispersal that have been used to stuff pillows and make candle wicks, and dress wounds during the first world war. Plug plants of cottongrass are being planted by the North Pennines National Landscape to restore degraded blanket bog. Binding the surface of the peat together with their wandering roots, they prevent further erosion. In other benefits, the female black grouse that I occasionally see up here feed on the flower heads, giving them a source of protein and energy before laying eggs in spring. The larvae of large heath butterflies feed on a similar species, the hare's tail cottongrass Eriophorum vaginatum. For a brief time, the moor is transformed in white and I come up here to revel in the spectacle and feel the peace. Swallows swoop to pick up insects off the road. A hare lopes through the tussocks as a lark delivers a stream of notes above. Then a curlew lifts off, beats its wings before gliding, its ecstatic bubbling song ending in a drawn-out plaintive note. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man is abducted from Cheviot Hills home, released in Glendale, police say
Five people broke into a home in West Los Angeles, tied up the occupants and kidnapped a man, later releasing him near a gas station in Glendale, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. At about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, police were alerted to a home invasion in the 9800 block of Vicar Street in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood. Four, possibly five, men wearing masks and all black were reported to have broken in, and they had at least one firearm, said Los Angeles Police Officer Drake Madison. The assailants abducted a man wearing blue boxer shorts, also stealing an iPhone, iPad and Apple watch, Madison said. The other victims in the house were tied up, according to Madison. He noted that LAPD officers, after arriving at the house, called an ambulance for a 35-year-old pregnant woman suffering from an anxiety attack. The man who was abducted was let go 22 miles away, next to a gas station in the 2100 block of Verdugo Boulevard, near where the 210 Freeway intersects with the 2 Freeway on the border of Glendale and the unincorporated area of Montrose. There were no reports that an ambulance was called for the man, Madison said. The abductors were last seen in a black pickup truck. Detectives have been canvassing the neighborhood and going through any surveillance videos for leads. Anyone with information is asked to call the Los Angeles Police Department. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call Los Angeles Regional Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477 or go to Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
CBS News
11-05-2025
- CBS News
Man kidnapped during home invasion in upscale Los Angeles neighborhood
A man was kidnapped from his home in Cheviot Hills during a robbery early Saturday morning, police say. It happened at around 1:30 a.m. in the 9800 block of Vicar Street, according to Los Angeles police. They say that five armed suspects wearing masks broke into the home and possibly took the homeowner with them when they fled. The man was found unharmed more than two hours later at a Circle K station in the 2100 block of Verdugo Boulevard in Glendale, about 20 miles away from his home, police said. It's unclear what the suspects took from the home before fleeing. No arrests have been reported by police. Neighbors told CBS News Los Angeles that the family living in the home only moved in about a week ago.
