The North East was the Silicon Valley of the early 19th century. Innovation and invention accelerated the world into coal-powered smog, and much of it was down to a man born here - George Stephenson.

This is High Streethouse, a cottage on the fringes of Wylam which stood on the Wylam Waggonway and later the formal railway from North Wylam to Newcastle. Now it was built in the 18th century, though there's little indication as to whether there was a previous occupant to Robert & Mabel who were George's parents. He was the 2nd child born in 1781, birthed into a pit family with only a pittance. We can presume he walked from here or hitched a waggon over to Newburn where he worked at the Water Row Pit when he was 17, uneducated but by all accounts well loved.

His father Robert was the mechanic for a Newcomen pumping engine on the edge of the river. There were two in Wylam owned by Blackett at this time - both around the site of the Jubilee Field today where the waggonway terminated. It is clear the great influence he had on his son, whose tinkering and knowledge of machines clearly rubbed off.

The house was a principal landmark of Stephenson's centenary celebrations in 1881, when a long procession of early locomotives trundled to Streethouse in homage to their forefather. This is seen below waiting to depart from Forth Banks, and included such locomotives as Locomotion and Killingworth Billy.

It's had a decent level of limewash to protect it for years to come, and some further restoration over the years, but it's still a beautiful little cottage which forms the pilgrimage site for one of the North East's greatest sons.