Espin Observatory, Heddon

In 1960, Kings College, Newcastle, now known as Newcastle University, purchased the Close House mansion and its grounds. That decade saw the installation of two large green telescope domes, made by Brown & Hood Ltd in Wallsend. A smaller, half-brick building featuring the Ash dome was built later, at the end of the 1970s.

These three domes formed the Espin observatory, located to the north of the Close House mansion, with a public footpath running alongside. Their locations can be seen in aerial photos on Google Maps. The largest dome houses a 60cm reflecting telescope, originally built by Calver around 1914. It was first owned by Reverend T.H.E.C. Espin, known as "The Vicar of Tow Law," who worked in County Durham.

After Espin's passing, the telescope fell into disrepair. In the 1960s, David Sinden and Grubb Parsons built significant telescopes, including the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope. Sinden restored the old telescope after locating it on a farm, where it had been disassembled and part of its tube repurposed as a trough for animals.

Sinden, also a member of the Newcastle Astronomical Society, like Espin before him, donated the restored telescope to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the mid-1960s. This 60cm reflector remains the largest telescope in North East England.

One of the domes also contained a 12cm Cooke refracting telescope, installed in the mid-1960s. This telescope resembles the one used by T.W. Backhouse in Sunderland, which is now in the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh. In the early 1970s, Newcastle University studied lunar soil samples from the Apollo missions at Close House, guided by Professor Keith Runcorn, a notable physicist and lunar geologist. Sheds were built for this research, avoiding magnetic materials to prevent interference with the lunar samples.

The telescopes at Close House were actively used until the early 2000s. The 60cm telescope supported both undergraduate and postgraduate work, as well as activity from the Newcastle Astronomical Society. In 2004, local businessman Graham Wylie bought Close House, turning the mansion into a hotel and developing the grounds into a golf course. During this time, two smaller telescope domes closer to the mansion were removed. By the mid-2000s, the University of Newcastle closed its physics department, leading to neglect of the site.