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Spittal, Northumberland
Spittal is a village in northern Northumberland, England. It is part of Berwick-upon-Tweed and is situated on the coast to the east of Tweedmouth. Spittal Beach is considered one of the best beaches in Northumberland. The name derives from a shortened form of "hospital"; a hospital, dedicated to St Bartholomew, was built here in the Middle Ages to take care of lepers. St John's, the parish church, was built in 1867 in the Early English style, its tower being added in 1894. Prior to this, "Spittlers" had worshipped in a stable loft. There is also a nonconformist church, St Paul's, built in 1878. The village has several hotels and guest houses providing bed and breakfast, a village shop as well as a microbrewery.
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Berwick Academy, Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick Academy (formerly Berwick Community High School) is a coeducational upper school and sixth form located in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the English county of Northumberland. on the border with Scotland.
Previously a community school administered by Northumberland County Council, Berwick Community High School converted to academy status in November 2011 and was renamed Berwick Academy. However the school continues to coordinate with Northumberland County Council for admissions.
Berwick Academy offers GCSEs and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of A-levels.
As of 2025, the school's most recent Ofsted inspection was in 2024, with a judgement of 'requires improvement'. The school was rated 'inadequate' in 2018. The Guardian reported the school's ongoing struggle with behaviour, funding and staffing in 2017.
The Academy is currently undergoing a transition into being a secondary school under the Berwick Partnership's new two-tier education system and will be rebuilt with updated facilities and grounds on the same site, at a cost of £42.6 million.
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Berwick-upon-Tweed Lifeboat Station
Berwick-upon-Tweed Lifeboat Station is located on the south bank of the River Tweed at Tweedmouth, part of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in the county of Northumberland, in England.
A lifeboat was first provided by the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (RNIPLS) in 1835, located at Spittal, and managed by the Berwick Lifeboat Association. The station closed in 1852, when the lifeboat was deemed unfit for service, but was reopened in 1855 by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
The station currently operates a B-class (Atlantic 85) Inshore lifeboat Penny J (B-940), on station since 2024, and a smaller D-class (IB1) Inshore lifeboat Glenis Joan Felstead (D-900), on station since 2025.
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River Tweed
The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is a river 97 miles (156 km) long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the River Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers of Britain and the only river in England where an Environment Agency rod licence is not required for angling. The river generates a large income for the local borders region, attracting anglers from all around the world.
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Tweedmouth railway station
Tweedmouth railway station was a railway station which served the Tweedmouth area of Berwick-on-Tweed in Northumberland, England. It was located on the East Coast Main Line. As well as a railway station for passengers, it was also the main service yard and goods yard between Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh. Also Tweedmouth station was the terminus for the Tweed Valley Railway line (opened in 1849), which connected the East Coast Main Line with the Waverley Line at Newtown St. Boswells. The station lies to the south of the Royal Border Bridge.
It was opened on 29 March 1847 and initially was the terminus on the East Coast Main Line as the Royal Border Bridge was not yet complete, so trains could not pass over the River Tweed. Once the Royal Border Bridge had been completed in 1850 and opened by Queen Victoria, trains had an unbroken run from London to Edinburgh.
The station was designed (like all the other Newcastle and Berwick Railway ones) by Benjamin Green, but was considerably more ornate - costing over £8600 to construct (due to company chairman George Hudson's insistence that it be as ornate as the North British Railway's depot on the other side of the River Tweed). The main single-storey building was on the southbound side, with a two-storey hotel and refreshment room attached to it at its northern end. Behind this were the two active platforms, which were served by loops off the main running lines. A substantial goods shed was also built, along with a four track locomotive depot in 1850. Despite this, its proximity to the main Berwick station (which was barely a mile (1.6 km) to the north) meant that it remained little more than a wayside halt for mainline local trains and the Kelso branch throughout its lifetime.
However it was considerably more important in operational terms for the NER, who used it as a major goods traffic hub and locomotive stabling and maintenance facility; they expanded the original loco depot significantly in 1877–8 and added a goods warehouse and accompanying sidings in 1902–3. After the 1923 Grouping, the London and North Eastern Railway concentrated all of its shed provision there, closing the old North British depot at Berwick station as part of the rebuild there in 1927.
After nationalisation in 1948, usage of the station gradually declined; by 1960, only a single train to and from Newcastle called each weekday, along with two in each direction on the Kelso and Newtown St Boswells branch line. British Railways closed the station to passengers on 15 June 1964 (along with the Kelso branch), a victim of the Beeching Axe. The loco shed suffered a similar fate two years later, though goods traffic continued to be handled until October 1984.
The station buildings were subsequently demolished, but a number of engineers' sidings remain on the eastern side, along with the 1961 power signal box that supervises the main line from the Scottish border southwards towards Alnmouth and a number of former railway staff cottages.