A SPECIAL season of events is planned to celebrate this year's 60th anniversary of Washington Old Hall being given to the National Trust.

The 800-year-old old hall opened last weekend after its winter shutdown with a new exhibition marking those 60 years and also telling the story of the hall's saviour, schoolteacher Fred Hill.

The most famous aspect of the hall's history is that it is the ancestral home of the family of George Washington, the first president of the United States. The most famous moment in the hall's recent history came in May 1977 when the 39th president, Jimmy Carter, visited. These American links will be celebrated with a play, Ghosts Across the Pond, to be performed in October by a Washington DC performing arts group with local students.

The hall is located between the A1 and the A19 to the south-east of Gateshead. For more details, go to nationaltrust.org.uk/washington-old-hall.

Today's photos are courtesy of National Trust Images, unless otherwise marked.

TIMELINE

973: First mention of a hall, made of wood, at Wessynton. "Hwaessa" was a Saxon chief who has given his name to the Washington area.

1183: The Bishop of Durham owned the stone-built hall which he exchanged with William de Hertburn who owned an estate at Hartburn which the Bishop fancied to go along with his Stockton possessions. William moved north and changed his name to William de Wessyngton.

1304: Edward I visited the hall on his way back from Scotland.

1613: The Bishop of Durham bought the hall from the last of the Washington family. It was so substantially remodelled that little remains of the 12th Century hall.

19th Century: From being a desirable address, the hall slid down the social scale and by the end of the century was a semi-derelict tenement block with nine families crammed into it.

1933: Declared unfit for human habitation and earmarked for demolition. Teacher Fred Hill started a campaign to save it.

1937: A £400 donation from an industrialist allowed Mr Hill to buy the hall for £350, but restoration work was halted by the war.

1941, May: Used for a War Weapons Week pageant which raised £30,000.

1955, September 28: The American ambassador opened the restored hall to the public. Mr Hill died weeks later.

1956, October 3: The National Trust took over the hall.

1977, May 6: Jimmy Carter visited.