Sandhoe Community

Sandhoe is a small rural parish with an area of about 4 square miles in the district of Tynedale, Northumberland. The parish name probably originates in the old english for “sandy heights” although it is known that the settlement is built on the site of an earlier, deserted medieval village.

Map of Sandhoe Parish

There are four centres of population; Oakwood, the largest (mostly 20th Century developments), Anick the oldest, Sandhoe village and a smaller settlement at Beaufront Woodhead.

The parish comprises a wide range of diverse property types. There is a mixture of working farms, converted farm buildings; new, traditionally constructed stone properties and early to mid-20th century housing, (concentrated in the Oakwood settlement).

The village of Sandhoe is at the centre of the parish, about 3 miles north east of Hexham across the river Tyne and is essentially an estate village for the Beaufront Estate.

At Anick there is a popular pub, the Rat Inn which attracts custom from far and wide; and until 2006, a Women's Institute. The Rat was named as one of the top pubs in Britain in a poll of Daily Telegraph readers. (May 2005).

The local estate at Beaufront has a Victorian gentleman's residence designed by Architect John Dobson and built on the site of an earlier Castle. Beaufront Woodhead is home to the local first school.

Sandhoe is not entirely rural. In its southern quarter is the Egger chipboard plant, a major employer.