Engraving

Thomas Bewick, one of Northumberland's greatest artists, was a wood engraver and naturalist. He was born in 1753 in Cherryburn, near Prudhoe, where there is now a museum and printshop run by the National Trust, where many of his original printing blocks are on display. Occasionally a limited number of blocks are printed and copied for sale.

Although his favourite subjects were 'birds and four-legged animals', which he carved both from life and paintings, he made detailed blocks to illustrate his own publication of Aesop's Fables. These are quite small, 2-3 inches across; the block is carved on Boxwood, a dense wood with tight grain but slow-growing and a piece of suitable size may be up to 300years old. Bewick also carved copper pieces and engraved the first banknote for Northumberland Bank. Any swans that he carved were of the Mute Swan; he was not aware of the Bewick species, a migrant identified some time later and named in his honour.

He died in 1828 and is buried in Ovingham churchyard, a mile from his birthplace on the opposite bank of the Tyne.