Wylam is famed for its association with the very earliest days of railways, and was home to some of this country’s most celebrated railway pioneers, including George Stephenson, Timothy Hackworth, and others. The Wylam of today, a peaceful residential village on the banks of the Tyne is quite different to the early 19th century, when the busy colliery used its waggon-way to deliver coal. When colliery manager William Hedley experimented with steam power Hackworth and Stephenson refined and improved these early locomotives. Wylam’s illustrious past is today honoured at Wylam Railway Museum, and at nearby George Stephenson’s Birthplace.