How to actually pronounce Newsham, where train conductors went wrong

Say it how it is written and you would say New-sham, which seems perfectly reasonable.

But Northumberland does not work like that, and this suburb of Blyth has been tripping people up for long enough that Northern Trains was forced to formally teach its conductors the correct pronunciation before making station announcements.

The correct pronunciation is New-sum.

The SH in the middle of the word does not behave as a SH. It softens to a simple S, and the final syllable compresses so that the -ham becomes -um.

Say it quickly and it almost rhymes with “blossom”.

Conductors were told the right way to pronounce the name of the station. (Image: Northern Trains)

Why Northumberland place names are so different

Northumberland was settled, invaded and resettled by so many different peoples over so many centuries that its place names are a layered archaeological record of everyone who ever lived here.

Vikings left their mark in endings like -by and -thorpe.

Anglo-Saxons gave us -ham and -ton and -wick. The Celts were here before both of them, and the Normans arrived afterwards and wrote the names down in ways that had nothing to do with how the locals said them.

The result is a county where the written name and the spoken name are frequently strangers to each other, and where the ability to pronounce a place correctly is still, quietly, a marker of belonging.

The places that catch everyone out

Newsham is in good company, the same story plays out at dozens of places across Northumberland every day.

Alnwick is pronounced AN-ick. Both the L and the W are silent. Alnmouth, just down the coast, follows different rules entirely: the L is voiced, giving you ALN-muth. Visitors who have just mastered Alnwick and applied the same logic to Alnmouth immediately get it wrong.

Ulgham, a village six miles north of Morpeth, is UFF-am. The LGH combination makes an FF sound, which nobody who has not been told would ever guess. Locals reportedly enjoy watching the moment visitors attempt it for the first time.

Cambois, a coastal village near Blyth and therefore practically a neighbour of Newsham, is pronounced CAM-iss. The BOI disappears. Its name derives from the Gaelic word for bay, and it has been confounding people since the Normans wrote it down.

Bellingham, the market town in the North Tyne valley, is BELLIN-jum, not BELL-ing-ham as every newcomer says. The same soft G rule applies to Whittingham, which is WHITTIN-jum.

Ponteland, the commuter village west of Newcastle, is Pont-EEL-nd, with the stress firmly on the middle syllable. It stands on the River Pont, and the -land ending is compressed almost to a single sound. People who say PONTY-land, rhyming it with Pontefract, will be gently corrected.

Why it matters for visitors

Getting a Northumberland place name right is not just about avoiding embarrassment, though that is a reasonable motivation.

It is about communication. Ask for directions to New-sham in Blyth and you may get a blank look.

Say ‘Newsum’ and someone will point you the right way.

For anyone planning a visit and wanting to arrive sounding like they belong, the rule of thumb is this: whatever you think a Northumberland place name sounds like, try saying it slightly differently.

You will probably be closer to right.