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Parking in Hexham, Northumberland

This is a spin off to Mardee's trip report of her trip, as the current parking situation in Hexham took me by surprise when we visited.

Last time I looked parking both in Beaumont Street (near the Abbey) and at Wentworth (the main town car park) was free and with no real restrictions- you just turned up, and parked. No charge. Easy.

At some stage disc parking (a little clock you put on your dashboard) has been brought in, and the Wentworth has been divided into short stay (2 hours), medium stay (4 hours) and long stay (over 4 hours). It turns out that you do not require discs in the long stay bays at the Wentworth.

This map shows the various car parks and restrictions in the town- https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Parking-documents/Location%20maps/Hexham-Disc-Parking-Plan-Sept-15.pdf

At the Wentworth discs can be obtained at the adjacent Wentworth leisure centre for £1. The short stay bays have a red border, the medium stay bays a blue border and the 100 long stay bays a white border. None of this is at all obvious as you drive in.

Forewarded is forearmed!

If I had known, or even checked, I would have brought my own parking disc from home, where we have the same system.

Posted by
2320 posts

I would have brought my own parking disc from home,

That's an important point isn31c. It doesn't matter where you get the disc from, it can subsequently be used anywhere there is disc parking. We always kept a selection in the car and had great fun deciding which one to use - Isle of Man, Stornoway...

Posted by
8157 posts

I wound up giving mine to someone else, since I was turning the car in the next day. But if I would have thought about it, I should have kept it and brought it back on my next trip. It's not like it takes up a lot of space. :-)

Posted by
14818 posts

"I wound up giving mine to someone else, since I was turning the car in the next day. But if I would have thought about it, I should have kept it and brought it back on my next trip."

Yes BUT!!....I'm sure you increased your "good trip Karma" by passing it on to someone else!

Posted by
8134 posts

When I was writing this it transpired that the County Council plan (above) is NOT complete (and sorry it took 2 weeks to get to this through all the photographs I have been working on).

So I squeezed in a 30 minute visit to Hexham this afternoon onto a 3 part day visit to County Durham and Northumberland to check things out in person.

There is another new long stay (up to 72 hours) car park, behind the Travelodge- it is called Alemouth Road Car Park (and that is what GPS will show) but the road signs show it as Hexham Gate Retail Park. This is off the roundabout at the Railway Station road bridge. That car park opened in December 2022- and the access road has signs that it is liable to flooding!!

Not sure how as the railway lies between the Car Park and the River Tyne.

That car park is at least 4 times as far from the Abbey as the Wentworth car park.

At the Wentworth the red (short stay) bays are at the bottom end (by Waitrose and the Leisure Centre- so further away from town), most of the top end is Blue bays (Medium stay) and the White bays (Long Stay- all day) are by the recycling bins and between the top entrance and the George F White shop (the former Tourist Information Centre). Those changes apparently happened in February 2023.

Discs can be obtained from the Leisure Centre, the Waitrose Store and the Wentworth Cafe.

Posted by
93 posts

A bit off topic here, but I'd just like to say that the Travel Lodge I stayed at in Hexham last October was a very nice, brand new, hotel with reasonable prices and a big free parking lot
I would recommend it to anyone staying in Hexham (it was my base for seeing Hadrian's wall).