t Stephenson, whose work
it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a
million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and
a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849--little more
than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later,
in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was
opened by Queen Victoria.

Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice,
and Walker, with its reminiscences of "Walker Pit's deun weel for me,"
we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a
colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000
inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical
works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons' Steam Turbine Works,
where was designed and built the little "Turbinia," on which tiny vessel
the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the
famous mines which have made "Best Wallsend" a synonym for best
household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed
for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now
turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.

The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built
towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the
world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name
proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then,
however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.

Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of
George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which
used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter
John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in
some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who
settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass
works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to
this.

[Illustration: THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE (showing Swing Bridge open).]

Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross
the river; and a racy dialect song--"Howdon for Jarrow" with its refrain
of "Howdon for Jarra--ma hinnies, loup oot"--commemorates the fa