Heddon on the Wall is situated about 9 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne. The village is built on a hill, on the line of Hadrian’s Roman Wall and has an exposed piece of the wall on the edge of the village. The village has survived on a variety of industries, including salmon fishing in the river Tyne, coal mining, the quarrying of sandstone and limestone, brick making, and of course, agriculture. The village underwent a relatively large expansion around 1960, with the building of two private housing estates and a council housing estate. The village now boasts two public houses, the Three Tuns and the Swan, a small block of shops, a library. In 2001 Heddon on the Wall came to world attention as the place where the Foot and Mouth outbreak started.