Wideopen

Named by distance, built on coal

Wideopen's unusual name is thought to simply describe its position — roughly the same idea behind the nearby Three Mile Inn and Six Mile Bridge — on the old Great North Road six miles north of Newcastle. Its own colliery was sunk in 1825 by Perkins and Thackrah, drawing its first coal in 1827 and running for well over a century before the site became, of all things, a car scrapyard. The village's other unexpected landmark is Sacred Heart Church, a Victorian Catholic church whose stained glass carries designs by three Pre-Raphaelite artists: Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and William Morris.