For the next 6 weeks (until Friday 16 August 2013)* EXTENDED INTO SEPTEMBER, there is an exhibition of photographs of Heaton Park Road and Heaton Park in Teasy Does It cafe (150 Heaton Park Road). The twelve photographs date from the late nineteenth century to the nineteen sixties and seventies. They comprise views of shops, houses and lost features of the park itself.

Many thanks to Newcastle City Library which supplied digital images and permission to display many of the photographs.

Here are a couple of tasters:

Heaton Park Road by Laszlo Torday

Heaton Park Lake

Laszlo Torday (1890 – 1975) was a chemical engineer, industrialist and a keen amateur photographer. He originally moved to Tynemouth from Hungary in January 1940 and later moved to Newcastle. His photographs, the majority taken in the 1960s and 1970s, reflect his interest in the streets and people of Newcastle. He took many in Heaton. Two of his photographs of Heaton Park Road are featured in the exhibition.

The lake, part of the original Heaton Hall Estate which was landscaped in the eighteenth century, was filled in during the 1930s. The structure to the left enclosed a bear pit where a brown bear was kept for the amusement of the public. This was removed during the early 1900s. There are four other photographs showing lost features of Heaton Park, including the bowls pavilion which was burnt down by suffragettes, the temple, the park keeper’s lodge and the croquet lawn.

Other images show houses and shops marked for clearance in the 1930s, Beavan’s store on the corner of Heaton Park Road and Shields Road in about 1904 and 190 Heaton Park Road with its original balcony. Many of the photographs include people who lived, worked and played in Heaton.

If you have any knowledge of the history of the buildings, people and features which appear in the photographs, we’d love to hear from you. We’d also like to talk to anyone representing a venue which would like to host a future Heaton History Group exhibition. Please contact Chris Jackson.