About Bedlingtonshire

Founded in 1972, Bedlingtonshire is set just ½ mile south of Bedlington town centre.  Bedlingtonshire provides a very tranquil setting, with the rolling countryside surrounding and attractive course layout; whilst playing its easy to forget how close to the town you really are.

Designed by Frank Pennink, Bedlingtonshire is amongst an array of world renowned Golf Courses ,crafted by the Dutch Course Architect. Pennink’s work includes The Old Course at Villamoura and The Royal St. Georges Golf Club in Kent.


The course provides a very fair but tough test of Golf, which concludes with a daunting, yet exciting finish. The pinnacle of the course being referred to as ‘the park’ by members: holes 13, 14 and 15. Set in the eldest part of the course, these three holes lay outside of what was once the opencast site, making them the most mature at Bedlingtonshire. Holes 13 and 15, two tight par fours sandwich a beautiful par three 14th hole. These holes can be the start of a very quick demise. If you escape ‘the park’ with a solid score, you face the 449 yard par 4 16th, where a bogey feels like a solid par. The 17th is a long, slightly uphill par 3 measuring 194 yards, this plays one club longer than you may expect! The finishing hole towards the clubhouse is a 521 yard par 5, with the fairway sloping towards the cleverly placed bunkers. Big hitters may be able to reach the 18th in two shots and be in with a closing birdie.

Bedlingtonshire Golf Club sits on the site of a former opencast mine operated by Richard Costain Mining Limited. Work began on 20th July 1955, and the first delivery reached the screening plant in mid-October that year. Output averaged 12,000 tons of coal a week, rising to 20,800 tons by 22nd June 1960, a world record for an opencast site at the time.
The original target of 5 million tons was comfortably surpassed, with 7 million extracted over 11 years.
Acorn Bank was home to a giant walking dragline, which locals proudly regarded as the largest in Europe. This was thought to have a 186 foot boom and a 25 cubic yard bucket. An archive photo, included below, famously shows it with 31 men inside!
We're sure many Bedlingtonarians remember the opencast and have memories of their own. Enjoy the photos, and please share any of your own photos and stories