Tag Archives: Confectioner

The Woods of Seventh Avenue

Mrs Wood of 57 Seventh Avenue is listed in the local press as having donated lettuce and flowers between 21 August and 26 August 1916 to Northern General Hospital where casualties of WWI were being treated. Apart from the same desire as many of the general public to contribute to the war effort, she had the additional motivation of having two of her three sons already serving in the Royal Field Artillery with the youngest to follow a little later.

Back story

Isabella was born Isabella Walker on 19 May 1861 in Ayton, Berwickshire to Robert and Isabella Walker (nee Gourlay). The 1881 Scottish Census shows her still living in Ayton with her mother Isabella, now widowed, and her brothers John, Robert, James and Thomas. Her occupation is recorded as ‘farm servant’ so she is likely to have been familiar with growing vegetables which may be relevant to her later gifts to the wounded soldiers.

By the 1891 Census she was married to David Simpson Wood, 29, a railway porter, who was also born in Ayton, Berwickshire on 13 June 1861, the son of John and Helen Wood (nee Simpson). They were now living at Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland with their 2 daughters, Isabella Gourlay Wood, age three, and Helen Simpson Wood, age eight months, and Isabella’s brother Robert Walker, age 35, a corporation carter.

Ten years later the 1901 Census shows the family living at 33 Elvet Street, Heaton (parish of St. Michael) with four more children: John David, age eight, Robert Thomas, age six, Margaret Cleghorn, age four, and Stanley Alexander, age one. David is now a railway guard and Robert Walker is still living with them and is now a general labourer.

In 1911 all the children are still at home and the family is now living at 57 Seventh Avenue. David is now a railway passenger guard and Robert Walker a builders labourer. Of the children, Isabella at 23 is a confectionery shop assistant; Helen, 21, is a clerkess in a laundry; John, 19, is an electric wireman and Robert, 17, is a butcher with the Co-operative Society. Margaret, 14, is ‘at home’ and Stanley, 11, is at school.

Died from wounds

When the First World War started in 1914, life must have changed suddenly for the Wood family. John, Robert and subsequently Stanley joined up and served in the Royal Field Artillery. No military record has been found for John, but all three brothers are recorded on the Roll of Honour 1914-18 in Heaton Presbyterian Church (now United Reform Church). Robert served as a driver with 1st/3rd Northumbrian Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, Service No. 750395, as later did Stanley, Service No. 262357. Stanley was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal and it is likely that John would also have received these as a surviving serviceman.

Robert served in France from 18 April 1915, where he was wounded, brought back to England and died from his wounds in St. George’s Hospital, London on 20 April 1917. He was buried in Byker and Heaton Cemetery (Grave reference xviii.v.3). Like many servicemen, he carried a handwritten informal will which left ‘the whole of my property and effects to my mother Mrs Wood, 57 Seventh Avenue, Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne’. This was enacted by the War Office and Isabella received the sum of £8 12s together with his War Gratuity of £11 10s.

Robert Thomas Wood’s will

Robert Wood’s grave

David Simpson Wood died on 18 March 1934 aged 72 and was buried in the same grave as Robert, as was Isabella when she died on 7 July 1937, aged 76.

Allotments

Isabella Wood’s gifts to the Northern General Hospital suggest that she may have been able to grow her own flowers and vegetables. It is possible that there was some vacant land near the Avenues which residents were able to cultivate or perhaps David Wood’s connection to the Railways gave his family access to railway land. It is also possible that the family had an allotment somewhere nearby.

As food supplies became more restricted with an increase in U-boat attacks on supply ships, the Cultivation of Lands Order of 1916 required councils to provide more land for cultivation for food production, and the minutes of Newcastle City Council show that ’55 separate groups of allotments have been formed and about 200 acres of land in the city put into cultivation, representing 2,900 allotments.’ Seed potatoes and manure were acquired and distributed at cost price to allotment holders, who could spread the cost over two or even three years.

Things did not always run smoothly for allotment holders, however. Minutes of 8 May 1917 report:

‘Armstrong Allotments Association – Damage by rabbits

The Town Clerk reported that representatives of the AAA had made a complaint to him that rabbits from Armstrong Park entered upon the allotments and ate up the cabbage plants and other vegetables. They had endeavoured to prevent the nuisance but were unable to do so and appealed to the corporation to assist them.

It was agreed to suggest to the allotment holders that they should endeavour to kill the rabbits and, failing this, the committee agreed to consider the question of wiring the park fence.’

Hints for allotment holders were regular features in local newspapers – the Newcastle Courant of 19 May 1917 promises ‘Advice about Brussels Sprouts and the Best Way to Sow Beet in next week’s edition.’

Growing your own was now essential and it seems likely that Isabella’s farming experience as a young woman in Berwickshire may have proved extremely useful to her and her large family.

Postscript

Since this article was written, we’ve been lucky enough to meet Olive Renwick, Isabella and David’s grand-daughter – Olive’s mother was Isabella, the Woods’ eldest daughter. Olive was able to tell us more about her grandparents, mother and aunts and uncles. She gave us permission to publish the photographs below.

She confirmed that her grandparents had an allotment on railway land near Heaton Station but also that her Great Uncle Robert cultivated a field near Red Hall Drive. She remembers him carrying heavy bags of potatoes and stopping off at her house for a rest en route home to Seventh Avenue. She also recalled that her father, who worked on the railways, used to buy leeks from Dobbies in Edinburgh and sold them on to work colleagues and neighbours.

She was also able to add to what we knew from the 1911 census where it is recorded that Olive’s mother, the younger Isabella was a ‘confectionary shop assistant’. Olive said the shop was on Chillingham Road between Simonside and Warton Terraces ‘opposite Martha and Mary’s’. Her father used to call in and buy something every day on his way home from work, leading his mother to wonder why he’d suddenly acquired such a sweet tooth. Only later did she realised that the shop assistant was the attraction rather than the cakes!

David and Isabella Wood with eldest children, Isabella, Helen & John, c1893

David and Isabella Wood in the backyard of their home in Seventh Avenue

Isabella Wood at her front door in Seventh Avenue, still tending plants

Robert Walker, Isabella Wood’s brother, who grew potatoes in a field of Red Hall Drive

Finally, Olive’s daughter Margaret took this photograph of the war memorial in Heaton Presbyterian Church on which her great uncles are remembered.

Heaton Presbyterian Church War Memorial where the contributions of Robert, John and Stanley Wood are commemorated.

The Wood brothers’ names on the Heaton Presbyterian Church war memorial

Heaton Avenues in Wartime

This article was researched and written by Caroline Stringer for Heaton History Group’s ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ projected, which has been funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. An exhibition, ‘Feeding the Avenues’, will be on display at the Chillingham pub from late July until late September 2015.

Many thanks to Olive Renwick, Margaret Coulson and Julia Bjornerud for all their help and for permission to publish photographs from the family archives.

Can you help?

If you know any more about the history of allotments in Heaton or any of the people featured in this article – or have relevant photographs – please contact Chris Jackson, Secretary, Heaton History Group (chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org)

88 Heaton Road – Clough’s Sweet Shop

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Cola bottles, rum truffles, rhubarb and custard, sherbet lemons, pear drops, liquorice torpedoes, cinder toffee, cough candy. Which are your favourites? Many are still sold at Clough’s Sweet Shop on Heaton Road.

How did it all start?

In 1934, Arthur and Edith Clough set up the shop at 88 Heaton Road as a confectioner’s and general dealer’s. With the growth of supermarkets in the 1980s, they dropped the grocery side of the business to concentrate on confectionery.

This part of Heaton Road was built in 1896 as part of a block of shops (with accommodation above). Wards Directory 1898 lists a W.Wilson confectioner at 88 Heaton Road and in 1920 Mosely & Jameson, confectioners, appear. In 1934 Wards records A.W. Bradley confectioner at 90 Heaton Road. So there seems to have been a long tradition of sweetshops in this block.

Arthur and Edith were apparently a good team. Arthur was fetcher, carrier, storeman and bookkeeper. Edith was very good at the sales side of things and window dressing. Virtually everything was bought direct from the manufacturers via the commercial travellers. The shop was open from 9.00 or 9.30 am until 10pm. Arthur and Edith had very little time off from the shop, usually one evening a week. In 1935 an additional shop was opened at 220 Chillingham Road and later a third in Sandyford Road.

War damage

In war time, Arthur volunteered as a fireman in the AFS (Auxiliary Fires Service) where he attained the rank of leading fireman. On 25 April 1941, the Luftwaffe attempted to bomb the railway line but hit the houses of Cheltenham Terrace and Guildford Place, causing utter devastation and many fatalities. The blast blew Clough’s shop windows out and spewed the contents into the street. Arthur’s team turned out but he had to pass his own damaged shop to attend to another location – imagine how that must have felt…..

Arthur and Edith’s three children, Ian, Hazel and Alan, all helped in the shop and were encouraged to learn the trade. After National Service, Ian set up his own shop, Candy Corner, opposite St. Theresa’s Church. In the early days the sweet jars were made of glass and it was hard work when the stock was delivered. The shop on Heaton Road had 2 back rooms, a cellar and two upstairs rooms called ‘The Cadburys Room’ and the ‘Rowntrees Room’.

Cloughs Sweet shop is still very much a going concern run by Alan following the death of his mother Edith in 2001 aged 95 years (Arthur died in 1993). The shop now sells more than 300 kinds of sweets. There are lots of loyal customers who say how pleased they are to be able to come to the shop they used to come to when they were children.

Ian Clough has recently updated his history of the Clough’s family’s sweetshop, which is available for purchase from Cloughs or at Heaton History Group meetings for £2.00. Why not call in and see if they still stock your childhood favourites!

And we’d love to hear your memories of Clough’s. Click on Leave a Reply just below the title of this article or email Chris Jackson.

Ann Denton

200 Heaton Road

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In 1898 there seem to have been just two (unnumbered and unnamed) houses on Heaton Road north of Heaton Baptist Church (apart, that is, from the separately listed Jesmond Vale Terrace): one was occupied by John Henry Brown, a cycle manufacturer, and the other by a builder named John Wilson.

The Falmouth Hotel

But two years later this part of Heaton Road looked very different. Building in the neighbourhood had continued apace and progressed northwards onto what had until very recently been farmland and the same John Wilson is listed in the trade directories as the first resident of 200 Heaton Road, the southernmost address in the block between Meldon Terrace and King John Street, the shop which, in 2013, is The Butterfly Cabinet cafe.

Originally though, as you can see from the photograph below, the block was primarily residential. John’s immediate neighbours were J Davidson, a tinsmith, and A W Penny, a ‘gentleman ‘. John himself though is more difficult to fathom. He had been born in Milton, Cumberland (not far from Brampton on the Newcastle – Carlisle Railway) and was by this time 45 years old. He was married to Elizabeth, a Scot. There were no children living with them in 1901 but the couple was affluent enough to employ a live-in housemaid and kitchen maid.

John had lived in Heaton for a good few years by this time. In 1887, he was already described as a builder with an office address in Heaton Park Road. By 1892, he was still a builder, living in Heaton Grove.

But in the early 1900s, although his primary occupation is still given as a builder, he’s also described as a wine and spirit merchant and it’s clear from directories, newspaper reports of brewster sessions and the photograph below that in the early days, an off licence operated at number 200, together with the adjoining 1 and 3 King John Street and that John Wilson owned the business premises and lived above or next to the shop. It’s called the Falmouth Hotel in unsuccessful applications for a ‘full’ licence to sell alcohol in 1899 and in this photograph but that name doesn’t appear in the trade directories.

The building itself is interesting. Visitors to the Butterfly Cabinet will testify that it’s a fair size. It incorporates what were originally numbers 1 and 3 King John Street and there have been various alterations over the years both to turn the three houses into one address or convert them back into separate flats.

The business lives on

John Wilson only lived and operated a business on Heaton Road for a couple of years. By 1903, a Thomas Blackett had succeeded him. Thomas had been born and bred locally. In 1887, he ran a stationer’s shop at 117 Shields Road. In his early forties, he was living at 31 North View and his shop had moved to 73 Shields Road. By 1895, he was still running the same shop although he had moved house again to 6 Guildford Place. But by 1901, his line of business had changed completely. Thomas was now a wine and spirit manufacturer and, as well as the now converted shop on Shields Road, he had shops in Heaton Hall Road (21), Jesmond, Sandyford and the west end. He was living at 23 Heaton Hall Road with his wife, Jane, six sons and daughters and a servant. Thomas Blackett died in 1912, leaving what was a fair sized estate of almost £15,000. The business he has built up lived on though. 200 Heaton Road didn’t change hands for another 20 years.

Sweets and buns

In the early 1930s, new flats were created at 200A and B and the shop became a confectioner’s, called firstly Burton’s and then Steel’s. Steel’s survived through the Second World War although, possibly in response to sugar rationing, by the end of the war it had been turned into a baker’s, part of a small chain which also had shops in Jesmond and Sandyford. Some older residents might even remember it?

A long time dyeing

In 1950 the shop changed character again. John Bradburn, originally from Ipswich, had started a business in the centre of Newcastle way back in 1831. At that time, he described himself as a ‘velvet, silk and woollen dyer’. By 1881, when he was 71 years old, he employed 6 men, 5 boys and 7 women. He died in 1890 but, as with Blackett’s, his business continued to thrive and 60 years later it expanded into Heaton. By this time, the firm was described as ‘dyers and cleaners’ and had branches in the west end and in Gosforth. Later a shop was opened at 265 Chillingham Road. The company’s office was at 55 Shields Road. In the early 1970s, however, after 140 years, the company seems to have closed completely.

Can you help?

Here the trail goes cold until recent years when first Belle and Herb and then The Butterfly Cabinet made the corner of Heaton Road and King John Street one of Heaton’s favourite haunts. Can you help us fill the gaps in our knowledge ? If you have any information, memories or photographs of 200 Heaton Road, please get in touch. You can either post a comment above this article: click on ‘Leave a reply’ just below the title. Or alternatively, email Chris Jackson.

212 Chillingham Road

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The photograph below shows the premises at 212 Chillingham Road, now occupied by Martha and Mary’s, a community cafe and meeting place, run by volunteers from St Gabriel’s Church.

The shop dates from around 1908 and the first occupier, W Wilson, confectioners, appears in the trade directories from 1909 and remained until 1919. The proprietor was William Wilson, who at the time of the 1911 census was aged 48 and living at 10 Heaton Road with his mother and sister, both called Sarah, and his brother, Septimus, who also gave his occupation as confectioner and so presumably worked in the family shop too. William was born and bred in East Newcastle, one of ten children, and he was already describing himself as a confectioner in the 1881 census, when he was aged 18. At that time, he lived with his mother and siblings in Gibb Street, Byker.

The boy in the picture is Randolph Cummings, born in 1895. At the time of the 1911 census, Randolph was living with his father, a furniture dealer and four brothers and sisters at 86 Simonside Terrace. Ten years earlier his father is described as a pawnbroker and the family were living in Grosvenor Avenue, Jesmond. Randolph’s granddaughter, Noreen Rees, sent us a copy of the photograph. There is also a copy on display in Martha and Mary’s. The billboard on the right, belonging to the newsagent’s next door advertises a ‘coming revolution in shop hours’. Any idea what that might have referred to?

In 1920, the shop was still a confectioners but now went by the name of Mosley and Jamieson. And in the mid 1920s it was referred to in the directories as Millers Hill Bakery. However, as you can see, the photo taken in the early days of William Wilson’s confectionary, before WW1, already includes this name. We’re not sure what the relationship between Wilson’s and Millers Hill would have been. Any ideas?

By 1928, the shop had been acquired by the London and Newcastle Tea Company, which was one of the UK’s earliest chain stores. The company had 40-50 branches by 1880 at which time it was the second biggest grocery chain in the country, just ahead of the rapidly expanding Thomas Lipton.

The firm had a loyalty scheme in operation as early as 1875, with the network of groceries which sold the company’s tea giving a brass check with each purchase. Customers were invited to save the checks until they had acquired enough to claim a prize such as a toy, an item of crockery or a household gadget. The checks are now collectors’ items but we haven’t seen one stamped ‘Heaton’. Check your drawers!

It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the shop changed hands again, when it became Adam’s, a greengrocers. And this is where we need your help. Can you add anything to the information here? Do you have any memories of Adams’ or any of the other shops which occupied 212 Chillingham Road before Martha and Mary’s? Or do you have any old photos of other shops in Heaton? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Contact chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org or comment here.