A town is perched on the steep eastern bank of the River Derwent and owes its origins to industrial development arising from lead mining in a area, together with the development of the steel industry in the Derwent Valley, which was initiated by immigrant German cutlers and sword-makers from either Solingen, who settled in the village of Shotley Bridge (original home of Wilkinson Sword and now a portion of Consett) when you took a seventeenth century.

In a period of a seventeeth & eighteenth centuries, a Derwent Valley was the cradle of the British steel industry, helped per real life accessibility of coal from Tyneside, and a import of high quality iron ore from Sweden via the port of Newcastle upon Tyne. All a same, as punishment the invention of the Bessemer process in the nineteenth century, steel could be processed from either British iron ore (which was otherwise too heavy exposed by phosphorus), and a Derwent Valley's geographical benefit was misplaced, permitting Sheffield to become a leading centre of the British steel industry.

A closure of the British Steel works at Consett in 1980 marked a prevent of a Derwent Valley steel heritage, & the decline of the town of Consett. Regeneration in the Nineties, through the "Genesis Project", went the select few way to repair a damage done, however unemployment is however a condition locally.

Little & medium-medium-size businesses okay, provide virtually all jobs in a area, sustaining the Department for Function & Pensions' Contributions Professional around nearby Longbenton also a major employer. Phileas Fogg foods, with its manufacturing plant on the town's First Industrial Estate, were mildly notable in the mid-90s for their "Made in Medomsley Road, Consett" television adverts.

Derwent Reservoir is located good west of the town.

Famous people from Consett

Rowan Atkinson, star of the Blackadder and Mr. Bean comedy series. There exists speculation that he became concerned around acting fallowing camping a Consett Empire Theatre, which was at a instance owned by his gramps. Susan Maughan, singer, who reached #3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1962 with "Bobby's Girl". Anthony Hutton, Big Brother 6 (2005) winner. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/4145742.stm]