WALLSEND THROUGH TIME, by Ken Hutchinson. Published by Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Glos (tel: 01285 760030). £12.99. Softback.

WRITTEN by a local historian who, when he worked as a town planner, recorded the loss of many old landmarks, this book uses old and modern pictures to tell the story of the town which began with the Roman fort of Segedunum, now the most excavated fort on Hadrian’s Wall.
While coal mining dominated Wallsend and the nearby communities of Willington, Howdon, Battle Hill and Rising Sun from the 18th century, by the early part of the 20th century the riverside skyline was dominated by cranes serving the Tyne’s world-famous shipbuilding industry.