An article in the "Newcastle Courant" of 17 January 1874 entitled ""Our Colliery Villages"" paints an unattractive image of the village – 'Wylam is the very worst colliery village that we have yet beheld …'. The colliery has an important place in the history of the development of the locomotive. It is thought that the Wylam waggonway was opened in 1748 and was therefore one of the earliest waggonways in the North of England. The waggonway linked the colliery to the staiths at Lemington from where the coal was taken down the River Tyne on flat bottomed boats called keels to be loaded on the large coal ships further down the river.