Martin H. Watson Family Tree

Weardale Iron and Coal Company
In 1853, an ironworks was built in Tudhoe, near Spennymoor in County Durham. Forges and rolling mills were built, and collieries were opened.[1][3]

In 1861 the company began to make steel by the Bessemer process in Tudhoe, the first to do so in northern England. At Tow Law Attwood was the first licensee of the Siemens regenerative furnace to make steel.

Tudhoe is now dwarfed by Spennymoor, an industrial town that grew up around the Tudhoe iron works in the 19th century. The modern town of Spennymoor lies only a few fields from Tudhoe, but the contours are such that it cannot be seen from most of the village, and Tudhoe today gives the impression that it is still an isolated country village.