Tag Archives: Windmill

Property Ownership in Heaton Township 1795-1810

The streets of Heaton and High Heaton are familiar to most visitors to this website but have you ever wondered what was here before they were built in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Eminent local historian, Mike Greatbatch, has been looking at surviving records to help us find out what Heaton was like 210-225 years ago:

The township of Heaton, like all the townships in Northumberland, owes its existence to the Settlement Act of 1662 which stipulated that the northern counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland, `by reason of their largeness of the Parishes within the same’, should henceforth be subdivided into townships for the better administration of the `the Poor, Needy, Impotent and Lame’ (13 and 14 Charles II c12 Settlement).

Whilst the township boundaries may have mirrored those of some major landowners in 1662, it should not be confused with these private estates. Townships were administrative districts created by parliament to levy the poor rate and disburse the available funds to relieve the poor. Consequently the township boundary of 1662 continued to define Heaton as a district for the next two hundred years, well beyond its incorporation into the Town and County of Newcastle in 1835. Only when the population of Heaton and Byker townships began to grow rapidly towards the latter half of the nineteenth century did the old boundaries become indistinct, with ward boundaries based on the changing size and distribution of Newcastle’s municipal electorate becoming the norm.

The Poor Rate

Heaton township was created to better administer the poor rate. This was a tax based on an assessment of the yearly value of property, defined by the annual rental paid by the occupier. Heaton township lay within the parish of All Saints, and surviving records show that the poor rate was supervised by the magistrates and administered by the parish vestry, whose members appointed and employed the overseers of the poor from amongst the ratepayers of the parish, and administered all collections of the rate and its disbursement.

The rate assessments were agreed at regular meetings to cover specific periods and purposes, being recorded in Rate Books along with a list of properties, their occupiers, and their rentals. The rate itself varied from time to time depending on changing levels of demand for poor relief and other associated expenditure, such as overseers expenses.

The number of surviving rate books for Heaton is very limited: the catalogue at Tyne and Wear Archives lists just three volumes between 1860 and 1890. However, within the records of the neighbouring township of Byker there is a detailed assessment that includes Heaton. Recorded in March 1795, this was specifically `a taxation for the purpose of procuring (jointly with the Township of Heaton) a Volunteer, to serve in His Majesty’s Navy during the present War’. A rate of two pence per pound was calculated to raise £20 10s 3d from Byker and £18 11s 8d from Heaton in the following month of April. At the end of the assessment, there are the signatures of the Overseers of the Poor for both townships, which for Heaton was Thomas Holmes, a farmer.

Rate assessment for the township of Heaton, October 1810. TWAS 183/1/102. Reproduced with permission of Tyne & Wear Archives

A similar detailed record also survives within the rate books for the parochial chapelry of Newcastle All Saints. Undertaken in October 1810 for the purpose of raising `the sum of four hundred pounds and upwards’, being the sum required to `reimburse the Church Wardens for the money expended by them for the Bills, Clerks Salary, Bread, Flour, Visitation Charges etc and to enable them to keep the Church thoroughly clean and in repair and other incidental expenses’. A rate of four pence per pound was levied, calculated to raise a total of £503 from the whole parish, of which £93 09s 3d would be raised in Byker and £66 12s 8d raised in Heaton. At the end of the assessment, the signature of Samuel Viner, a magistrate (`his Majesty’s Justices’) and Peter Marsden (a public notary acting on behalf of the church) are recorded, confirming their consent to the agreed rate, together with the date they attached their signatures to this declaration, 23 October 1810.

Taken together, these two detailed records illustrate the nature and changing value of property in Heaton during these years, together with the names of those whose income permitted them to occupy these premises as tenants of the two principle landowners at that time, Matthew Ridley and Sir Matthew White Ridley. The latter lived at Heaton Hall on land owned by the former and ,in 1795, the rental value of the house and grounds was £60, rising to £180 in 1810. Whilst this is the only house identified in the rate assessments, the farmhouses were included in the overall value of the farm rentals, and likewise the cottages occupied by the labourers. The working poor did not own property and thus they are absent from both assessments.

Coal and Iron

The population of Heaton recorded in the first detailed census carried out on 10 March 1801 was just 183 persons. By contrast, the population of neighbouring Byker was 3,254 persons. Byker was far more industrialised than Heaton by 1801 and this is reflected in the rate assessments undertaken in 1795 and 1810. Industrial property was present in Heaton in both years but its share of the total value of property was significantly less than in neighbouring Byker.

Heaton Colliery was the most valuable property in Heaton. In March 1795 it was valued at £1000 annual rental, increasing to £1,750 per annum by October 1810. This one industrial concern accounted for at least 45% of the total value of the property in Heaton recorded in both years.

Other industry in Heaton accounted for a mere 5% of the total value in both 1795 and 1810, despite the significant increase in value of Malin Sorsbie’s iron-works at Busy Cottage, from a rental of £30 per annum in March 1795 to £100 rental in October 1810. In neighbouring Byker the contrast couldn’t be greater. Here industry other than coal mining and associated transport accounted for 15% of the total in 1795 and 41% of the total value in 1810.

The iron-works at Busy Cottage (where Jesmond Dene’s visitor centre and Pets’ Corner are now) had long been a significant industrial settlement in Heaton. When it was advertised for sale in 1764, following the bankruptcy of its then owner, George Laidler the younger, this settlement adjacent to the east bank of the Ouseburn consisted of a dwelling house, three houses for servants and workmen, a stable with two parcels of ground adjoining, an over-shot forge and bellows wheel, a furnace for making iron, and facilities for making German steel. There was also a tilt hammer for making files and other items from thin iron plate, and a grinding mill with up to seven grindstones, a machine for cutting dyes, and a slitting mill for cutting and shaping bars of iron, all powered by over-shot waterwheels or water powered engines.

There were also extensive smiths shops that could employ up to fourteen workmen using three hearths, plus a foundry for casting iron and a steel furnace capable of producing about four tons of steel every nine days. When the premises were advertised again, two years later, there were an additional thirteen smithies, several warehouses, and a `Compting-house’ (counting-house) or office.

From January 1781, Busy Cottage was owned by the owners of the Skinner-Burn Foundry, Thomas Menham and Robert Hodgson, and when they became bankrupt in January 1785, Busy Cottage once again was advertised for sale, being `well adapted to carrying on the nail, hinge, ….file cutting, or any other branch in the smith and cutlery way’. The complex also included a water-powered corn mill at this time.

Although advertised for sale again in the summer of 1790, Thomas Menham is still recorded as living at Busy Cottage in January 1793, so Malin Sorsbie had not long been in possession of the property when he was recorded as occupier in the March 1795 rate assessment.

The Sorsbie family had long been prominent amongst the business and municipal community of Newcastle; a Robert Sorsbie served as mayor in the 1750s and Jonathan Sorsbie later served as Clerk of the Council Chamber. In the 1760s the family business interests included grindstone quarries on Gateshead Fell and a foundry at a site on the south side of the Tyne called the Old Trunk Quay, in addition to their corn merchant business with offices at Sandhill. Malin Sorsbie owned a house and garden in fashionable Shieldfield from at least January 1789 onwards.

Mills: Water & Wind

If Heaton Colliery and Busy Cottage were the highest value industrial property in Heaton, this does not diminish the importance of the other three industrial enterprises active in these years. All three followed the upward trend in value between 1795 and 1810 and were an important feature of the township beyond this period.

The precise location of Robert Yellowley’s flint mill is uncertain, but should not be confused with the similar establishment on the west side of the Ouseburn in Jesmond. The Yellowley family were merchants, and by the 1790s Robert Yellowley was wealthy enough to afford the rent on a house at St Ann’s Row on the New Road, west of Cut Bank. When the Ouseburn Pottery of Backhouse and Hillcoat ran into financial difficulty in 1790, Robert Yellowley acquired the business and is recorded as proprietor from June 1794 onwards. Flint by this time was an essential ingredient in the manufacture of better quality earthenware as it turns white when burnt, and thus provided a bleaching agent when used in firing the ware.

Heaton windmill was in the occupation of William Dodds throughout these years and, like the watermill occupied by Patrick Freeman in October 1810, it was an important adjunct to the eight farms that occupied the greater part of the land in the township. Identifying the precise location of Freeman’s watermill is not easy. In a schedule of land prepared by the surveyor John Bell to accompany a plan of West and East Heaton in December 1800, there are three mills – High, Middle, Low – identified in fields adjacent to the east bank of the Ouseburn. However, in 1810, Freeman’s is the only mill specifically identified as water powered, so it may be that the other two were dormant and unoccupied. In the 1795 rate book, this property appears to be occupied by Richard Young but again little indication is provided as to its location.

Heaton’s Farms, 1795 and 1810

In the October 1810 rate assessment there are eight farms, which together had a combined value of £1,738 or 45% of the total rental value of the township. The families who occupied those farms were the same as in March 1795 with the exception of William Lawson who had died in January 1804. In 1810, Lawson’s farm was occupied by John Watson.

The most valuable farms were High Heaton Farm (the Holmes family), Lawson’s farm, the Newton family farm in Low Heaton, and Thomas Carins’/ Cairns’ (the spelling varies throughout this period) farm. Some indication of their social and economic standing is provided by the fact that Thomas Holmes was the township’s Overseer of the Poor in 1795, and Cairns the treasurer of the local Association (for Prosecuting Felons). This Association combined with similar associations of property owners in neighbouring Gosforth and Jesmond to offer cash rewards to anyone providing information that helped secure a conviction for theft, damage or trespass, and/or the return of stolen property. They also published appeals to their fellow property owners and hunt enthusiasts to avoid damage to crops and `not to ride amongst corn or grass seeds’.

Membership of the Heaton and Jesmond Association for the Prosecution of Felons etc included 6 Heaton farmers and 1 mill owner. Newcastle Advertiser 7 Feb 1807, p1. Reproduced with permission of Newcastle City Library Local Studies & Family History Centre.

All these farms were extensive undertakings, and given the sparse population of Heaton at this time, all were vulnerable to theft. When Lawson’s farm was broken into in 1790, thieves stole hens, geese, and poultry, and made off on a mare that returned to the farm the same night. In the summer of 1795, twenty-three chickens, six hens and two cockerels were stolen from a single hen-house in Heaton; a reward of two guineas was offered by William Pattison of Heaton, with a further reward of three guineas paid by the Gosforth Association on conviction. When Joseph Newton’s garden was broken into in July 1808 and a quantity of fruit stolen, causing injury to the trees, a reward of twenty guineas was offered by the Heaton and Jesmond Association, Newton being one of its members.

If apprehended, those convicted could face severe punishment. In October 1798, Joseph Nicholson, William M’Clarie, Jane Cunningham, and Mary Eddy were all sentenced to six months hard labour for having stolen rope from Heaton Colliery. Given the need to store ropes, screws, bolts and other iron materials, the colliery was a regular target for thieves. As incidents of infringements of property rights increased, so the punitive nature of these associations became more pronounced.

Conclusion

In March 1795, the total value of property assessed for the poor rate in Heaton Township was £2,136. By October 1810 the total value of the same property was £3,878; being an increase of 81.5%. Despite the on-going war with Revolutionary France and its allies throughout this period, the local Heaton economy experienced something of a boom period.

The interdiction by French naval ships or privateers of merchant ships importing grain and other foodstuffs to the Tyne resulted in a food shortage, especially of wheat and rye. In 1799, the resultant scarcity of flour led some local newspapers to recommend rice and potatoes as good substitutes by way of relieving the distress prevalent amongst the town’s poorer inhabitants.

This scarcity also resulted in an increase in the price of grain and locally milled flour. Despite the accumulation of imported grain in temporary wooden stores, soon commonly referred to as Egypt, just west of Saint Ann’s Church in the summer of 1796, the price of wheat, rye, barley, and oats all increased from 1798 onwards. This of course was good news for farmers, millers, and landowners in townships like Heaton where transport costs to the local Newcastle market were negligible.

One might think that as their income and property values increased, the respectable residents of Heaton might relax their attitude to their neighbours in the manufacturing districts of Sandgate and Byker. Sadly, the opposite appears to have occurred. As the wartime economy and interruptions to overseas trade increased the numbers of those without work or on low income, so the property owners of Heaton became increasingly conscious of the vulnerability of their privacy and possessions. Unemployment, food shortages, and widespread human distress made the sparsely populated lanes and fields of Heaton all the more attractive to those desperate for redress and with little to lose.

In June 1805, a blacksmith named Erington was stopped near Heaton Wood by a man dressed in a blue jacket and robbed of a £20 bank note. Such incidents of so-called foot-pads became a recurring feature of Newcastle newspaper reports as the number of homeless seafarers and unemployed workers increased. The response of the local associations of property owners was characteristically harsh, resulting in the following all encompassing resolution by the Gosforth (& Heaton) Association in November 1805 `to prosecute with the utmost rigour, all vagrants, or other disorderly strollers, and those who give them harbor or encouragement’. By the first decade of the nineteenth century, even going for a stroll, in Heaton, had become a dangerous pastime.

Sources & Acknowledgements

Written for Heaton History Group by Mike Greatbatch. Text copyright Mike Greatbatch and Heaton History Group. Image permissions from Tyne and Wear Archives for use on this website only.

The surviving rate assessments for these years are part of the collections at Tyne & Wear Archives, specifically 183/1/577 Byker 1794-1802, and 183/1/102 Newcastle All Saints June-November 1810.

Contemporary trade directories and Newcastle newspapers, specifically the Courant, the Advertiser, and the Tyne Mercury provided details of properties and owners, together with reports on the human impact of wartime food shortages and the response of property owners through the various Associations. Many of the newspaper sources were accessed on-line via the British Library’s invaluable British Newspaper Archive.

The author is grateful to staff at both Tyne & Wear Archives and Newcastle City Library Local Studies & Family History Centre for their help in accessing sources and for permission to reproduce the two images.

An exile remembers: Part 5 – Heaton Park 2015

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Heaton History Group is often contacted by people who used to live in the neighbourhood and have vivid and usually fond recollections. We love to hear their memories. ‘RS’ still returns to Heaton from time to time. Here is the fifth instalments of his thoughts.

‘So, it’s time to leave Armstrong Park and make the brief walk to its nearby neighbour. At this point I know what you may be thinking: there’s rather more to Armstrong Park than that which I have described. Too true. There’s the large area behind the old windmill, for example, which I must have explored at some time or other back in the sixties, but of which no particular memory is retained today. Described in Part 4 were simply the features of Armstrong Park with which I was, and remain, most familiar – the bowling green, the tennis courts, the large grassy area in front of the windmill, the windmill itself.

I walk from the windmill’s information board towards King John’s Palace, crossing, on my way, the narrow winding path which leads down to the park exit – much more foliage in this area than there used to be – then carefully negotiate my way down the grassy bank before walking across Jesmond Vale Lane.

King John’s Palace also known as The House (or ‘Camera’) of Adam of Jesmond

Now on the other side of that road, with the ‘palace’ in front of me, several changes are clearly visible. Nevertheless, while standing here, it is another set of images from another experience, existing as a vivid memory from fifty years ago, which briefly dominates my consciousness. It happened like this.

And it’s a bit of a boys’ thing. Back in those days, it was fairly normal for young lads to be carrying a knife when out and about. (Yes, please feel free to read that sentence again.) No harm was obviously intended in doing so, or certainly not among my circle of primary school-age friends, but … well, back then a lad just did. Trust me on this. We even took them to school, where admittedly it probably wouldn’t have been a wise move to brandish them in lessons, even when overcome with the excitement frequently experienced when ploughing through the latest adventures of ‘Janet and John’, but when otherwise I can’t recall there being any particular problem, say at playtime. It could be a small or large penknife. Perhaps it might be a Swiss Army-type knife, incorporating a clever little tool for removing stones from horses’ hooves, always handy in the – admittedly unlikely, but I lived in hope – event that I might eventually stumble across a suitably distressed horse limping somewhere around Heaton. (It’s always best to be prepared – just in case.)

Ah yes: ‘Be Prepared’, the motto of the Cub Scouts, the youthful members of which organisation seemed to be routinely issued with sheath knives as a standard feature of their equipment, and which were worn freely and openly, hanging from their belts, even when not in uniform, with plenty of non-Cubs owning and publicly displaying their own examples, too.

I’m digressing now but, come to think of it, youthful ‘firearms‘ were in plentiful supply, as well. How many lads in those days didn’t own a cowboy-type cap-gun revolver? Or rifle? Not many. Or if so, it was only because they were impatiently waiting for Santa to get his act together the next time Christmas came around. Secret agent-type pistols were very common as well, in the style of James Bond or The Man From Uncle. Best of all was the legendary ‘Johnny Seven – One Man Army’. (We’re talking serious weaponry here. No messing.)

Want to get an idea of the genuine Johnny Seven experience? I can only recommend you click on the following YouTube link: http://youtu.be/w-tz-9c-g4A

That’s a bit what it was like for a lad on the mean streets of central Heaton, about fifty years ago, although more often in short trousers and, unsurprisingly, without a random unseen American shouting orders in the background. (Come to think of it, like that advert, we may even have played in black and white, but it was rather a long time ago so I can’t be certain on that point.)

Interested? Well come over to my place and have a turn with mine. No, really – I’ve still got my own Johnny Seven. Some bits have gone missing over the decades and some now malfunction – I’m currently having problems with the grenade launcher – so it’s probably more accurate to call it a ‘Johnny Four And A Half’, but it certainly still exists.

You’re going to want a photo to believe me on that one, so here you are:

(And don’t get me started on the joys of the catapult.)

Anyway, so there we were, roaming around central Heaton, openly carrying our fearsome assortment of knives, revolvers, pistols, rifles and Johnny Sevens – veritable armed militias of 8-10 year olds – perhaps, on reflection, rather as if ‘Crackerjack’ had decided to broadcast a special one-off edition from Vietnam. Can you imagine children playing like that today? Some horrified onlooker would get out their mobile phone, and within five minutes you’d be deafened by the sound of approaching squad cars, before the whole of Heaton would be put in ‘lockdown’ for the rest of the day, while Social Services implemented the politically correct provisions of their latest ‘children at risk’ intervention strategy.

Which takes me back to where I was. No, not in Vietnam – back to standing on Jesmond Vale Lane, just by the ‘palace’, sometime in the mid-sixties.

Standing with a friend, as it happens, name now long forgotten. There I was, holding my pearl-handled, multi-function, Swiss Army knife, no doubt still optimistically on the lookout for that perpetually elusive limping horse. In the meantime, as we’d been walking up the lane, on the way home, I had been amusing myself by aimlessly hacking away at random twigs, overhanging leaves and the like, as I went – fair enough, not ideal behaviour, but essentially harmless. The trouble was, he’d obviously been watching and following us for the last few minutes. And ‘he’ was … the ‘parky’!

Or should that be the ‘parkie’? No matter – it was going to take more than correct spelling to get us out of this one. This was serious. Appearing from seemingly nowhere was the man more officially known as the Park Keeper, and who seemed to operate in both Armstrong and Heaton parks. A smallish, perhaps fortyish gentleman, he very much resembled a typical bus inspector of the day – remember them? – with dark gabardine overcoat and black peaked cap, an impression reinforced by the fact that he carried some sort of silver-coloured ticket machine slung over his shoulder, and which dangled by his waist, in his case for the purpose of issuing tickets in exchange for the sixpence needed for the use of the tennis courts.

And he wasn’t happy. Curtly he demanded that I hand over my knife. On reflection, I could have simply refused. If matters then became difficult, I suppose I could have sent my anonymous friend to my house in Simonside Terrace to get some back-up firepower. I’m sure Mr Parky would have thought twice about the wisdom of his demands – or at least considered entering into negotiations – when confronted with a fully loaded Johnny Seven: the anti-tank rocket, in particular, is some serious piece of plastic.

But of course, I did none of those things. I might ‘talk the talk’ now, but back then I didn’t ‘walk the walk’. Or rather, I did. All the way back home, in fact. Somewhat sheepishly, if the truth be told. Without my knife. Which, of course, I had meekly handed over to the ‘parky’. In those days, to defy an adult was often not such an easy thing to do, but to defy an adult in a uniform was close to unthinkable. So I didn’t think it, and didn’t do it.

And would you believe this? Just as we turned into Rothbury Terrace, there it finally came, hobbling uncomfortably towards us … clipetty, clop (painful whinny) clipetty, clop … (No, I didn’t think you would, and you’d be right not to.)

But in any case, the welfare of the infrequently encountered limping horses of Heaton were from that day on someone else’s responsibility.

And yes, Mr Parky – that person was you.

The Heaton Road Millionaires’ Row That Never Was

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In 1868, while Lord Armstrong was enthusiastically buying Ridley land in Heaton, he acquired a plot north of Heaton Hall as far as Benton Bank: it included areas then known as Bulman’s Wood and Low Heaton Farm (the farmhouse was by the junction of Benton Bank and the Ouseburn Road: see map) plus three abandoned coal mine sites – the Thistle, the Knob and the infamous Chance Pit up by the windmill. This entire plot was bordered along its western edge by the Ouseburn Road, its southern boundary by Jesmond Vale Lane and the eastern side by Heaton Lane (now Road). After giving Armstrong Park to the people of Heaton, two new roads were planned through the remainder of the land which had been divided up and offered for sale as thirteen residential plots of between two and four acres each. This extravagant development would be named The Heaton Park Villa Estate: millionaire mansions by the baker’s dozen. There goes the neighbourhood!

The following illustration shows the plots in relation to today’s developments.

This last illustration indicates how little more than half of the estate was ever developed (more on this is to follow) while the remainder was given over to an allotment complex of two halves: the small northern section called St Gabriel’s Allotments and the larger southern portion known as the Armstrong Allotments.

Back at the ranch

A letter dated 1884 to Sir William from his Newcastle architect Frank W. Rich of Eldon Square (who was later to design St Gabriel’s Church) explains how the original 13 large plots have been abandoned in favour of 41 plots of between one-third and one acre-and-a-half. He indicates that these smaller sizes are what buyers are looking for and that anyone needing more may simply buy multiple plots. One such gentleman for example – Mr Thomas H. Henderson of Framlington Place (behind the Dental Hospital) – asks for a particular 1.5 acre plot at an offered rate of £500 per acre when Sir William is looking for £600. This tells us what a four acre plot would have actually cost and why there were obviously no takers for such sizes, especially when you consider that the largest residential plots anywhere in Newcastle were an acre and a half.

The layout for the forty-one plots was never lodged with the planning department and it seems likely that the outlined houses shown on the original thirteen plot plan were simply random or figurative, and that each house would have been designed (hopefully by Mr Rich) to the specifications of the buyer. There were certainly no house designs lodged with the planning department for either the thirteen plot estate or the forty-one plot version.

Mr Rich further explains to Sir William that the roads were run by necessity according to the gradient of the land. Looking at the terrain today indicates that the largest sites – those bordering the park – would have been on relatively flat ground down at low level, but with no prospect beyond their own boundaries; while the smaller Heaton Road sites would have occupied the high ground looking out across the park. I don’t think anyone buying a four acre plot down below would have been greatly enamoured of their neighbours in the cheap seats lording it over them; would you?

However, thirteen or forty-one soon became immaterial because it didn’t take long for surveys to reveal that much of this land was actually one giant sand-hill and totally unsuitable for house building purposes, unless it was to mix with cement. Mr Rich does inform Sir William at a later date that they now have sand, stone and brick immediately to hand on their land in Heaton (where was the stone quarry?) and that builders could buy it all directly on site. Oh, how the rich get richer! But…

Ever the benefactor to us hoi-polloi, Lord Armstrong’s will said that the entire area be reserved as allotments for those tenants of his Heaton development lacking gardens of their own – which was a lot of them. Sir William’s heir was forced to apply for an act of Parliament in order to overturn the will and develop such areas deemed suitable for construction – but not until the nineteen-twenties when housing shortages had become a government issue.

Keith Fisher, Heaton History Group

House Histories

If you own a house in Heaton and have the deeds and other documents and would like to know more about its history, get in touch via chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org and we’ll try to help. If enough people are interested, we might be able to arrange a course in researching your house – and could even help with the research depending on demand.

Heaton’s Favourite Buildings

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Our vote for Heaton’s favourite caused quite a storm, with coverage in the Evening Chronicle and lots of interest at and after John Grundy’s talk. The shortlist, all of which were nominated by Heaton History Group members or Twitter followers, was;

Heaton Windmill We have to kick off with this one. Iconic is an oversused word but this feature of Armstrong Park is certainly a familiar and much-loved landmark and the one we chose to be Heaton History Group’s logo and feature on our home page. The windmill dates from the early eighteenth century and was already a ruin by 1844. Constructed from coursed squared sandstone, it’s been partially restored since then and is grade 2 listed. Has to be a contender.

People’s Theatre It’s the art deco detailing together with, for many people, happy memories of time spent inside which makes The People’s such a favourite. The building was designed by Marshall and Tweedy and opened in 1936 as the Lyric cinema. During its first week, the two films shown were ‘Little Colonel’ with Shirley Temple and ‘Sweet Music’ with Rudy Vallee and Ann Dvorak. (Thanks to Tomorrow’s History for that information). Conversion into a theatre toook place in 1962. The first play performed there was George Bernard Shaw’s ‘ Man and Superman’. (Thanks to People’s Theatre). The photos below were taken in this week’s snow and shortly after the cinema opened in 1936. (Thanks to Newcastle Libraries for this one.) Does it get your vote?

Shakespeare House Although it’s in a pleasant, secluded, green corner and, when we checked it out on a snowy day in March, the birds were in full voice, from the front 47 South View West doesn’t look too different from many other houses in Heaton. It’s the gable end that makes it one of many people’s favourite local landmarks. William Shakespeare’s face (based on Martin Droeshout’s famous engraving of 1623) looks down on streets named in his memory.

The surrounding terraces – Stratford Grove, Warwick Street, Malcom Street, Bolingbroke Street, Mowbray Street, Hotspur Street etc – were built before the end of the 19th century but when some houses were demolished 100 or so years later to make way for Hotspur School, the decorative brickwork was put in place.

The People’s has been putting on Shakespeare plays in Heaton regularly since the 1960s. The RSC’s been coming to Newcastle since 1977, with members of the company often lodging locally as well as intermittently appearing at the People’s. The South View West gable end seems fitting somehow and it makes us smile.

Wills Building

The Wills factory was retro even when it opened in 1950. Its foundation stone had been laid four years earlier but it was built to a pre-war art deco design by Cecil Hockin, an Imperial Tobacco Company in-house architect. (WD and HO Wills was actually part of Imperial Tobacco as early as 1901, so even the buidling’s name was retro from the outset.) Apparently at its peak, 6 million Woodbine cigarettes a day were manufactured at the plant. The complex included a theatre and other leisure facilities for staff as well as the factory itself.

Production ceased in 1986. Its last days were documented by photographer Isabella Jedrzejczyk and can be seen on the Amber Online website with text by Ellin Hare.

The disused building was given Grade 2 listed status to prevent demolition. It stood empty for 10 years until Wimpey Homes converted the former front wing into 114 apartments. The building is still a nationally important example of art deco architecture and its elegance and clean lines, together with its prominent position on the Coast Road, makes it a local favourite too. Luckily it just sneaks into Heaton – the adjacent railway line marks the boundary with Wallsend.

If you or anyone you know used to work at the factory, please get in touch. We’d love to find out more about what it was like to work there.

King John’s Palace Built before 1267 and so the oldest still (partly!) standing building in Heaton by some distance, King John’s Palace is a constant reminder of Heaton’s rich history. Despite its name though, it almost certainly doesn’t date from the reign of King John, which ended in 1216. Best estimates date it around 1255. There are traditions, however, that both King John and King Edward I stayed in Heaton which may have caused confusion. The building’s alternative names of The House of Adam of Jesmond or Adam’s Camera (‘camera’ here means ‘chamber’ or a usually round ‘building’), give better clues to its history. Adam was a knight and staunch supporter of King Henry III. Records show that he became unpopular for embezzlement and extortion and that he applied to Henry for a licence to enclose, fortify and crenellate his house. Adam went to the crusades from which he didn’t return and his house was allowed to fall into disrepair.

Thanks to the Jesmond Dene History Trail for the above.

Beavan’s Beavans had been trading since the 19th century – an 1879 directory lists ‘Fred Beavan, draper’ on the North side of Shields Road, where Parrishes later traded – but the lovely building on the corner of Heaton Park Road and Shields Road is Edwardian and contains many features, such as the round and stained glass windows, which are typical of the period. A railway line used to pass under the building which apparently meant that permission wasn’t granted to build upper floors on the west side. The new store was opened in 1910 and traded until (we think) the early 1990s. You can still see original name plates ‘F Beavan Ltd, Ironmongers and Furnishers’ as well as a sign which reads ‘Beavans – the great cash drapers’. the building now contains apartments.

If you or anyone you know used to work at Beavan’s or know more about its history, please get in touch. We’d love to find out more.

Ringtons The former head office of the Ringtons tea and cofee business is the first 1920s building on our short list. Its distinctive white stone, green and yellow tiling and the elegance, especially of the slightly older southern half, along with its association with a long-established, local company make it a favourite with many people. It’s now the auction house of Thomas N Miller, with Ringtons operating from more modern premises next door.

Ringtons was established in Heaton by Sam Smith and his business partner, William Titterington, in 1907, at first delivering tea from small premises in the avenues. Thank you to Ringtons for the older photograph which shows a busy scene from when the firm was using the horse drawn carts which helped make it famous – and notice the long-demolished houses in the background. Can anyone help us date it?

Sam Smith and his family later lived Warton Terrace. To find out more about Ringtons and its long association with Heaton, go to the small museum housed in the company’s current Algernon Road HQ which tells the fascinating story of the firm’s history.

Ringtons building detail

St Gabriel’s Church The tower of the parish church of St Gabriel is one the tallest structures in Heaton and so the church can be seen from some distance. It’s built in a free Gothic style of snecked sandstone, with a roof of graduated lakeland slate (Thanks to English Heritage for that information). Th e style and materials help it give quite a villagey feel to this part of Heaton and mean that it’s much loved not only by its congregation.

The church was designed by FW Rich (also responsible for Ouseburn School and Bolbec Hall) and built in 1899 on land donated by Lord Armstrong. The south transept and chapel were added in 1931. It is now Grade 2 listed. This photograph held by Newcastle City Libraries was taken in 1957/8.

Heaton Road Co-operative Building One of several former Co-ops in Heaton, this fine three storey brick building adds character to the southern end of Heaton Road. It was built in 1892 and, as well as the date, carries the inscription ‘Newcastle upon Tyne Cooperative Society Limited, Heaton Road branch, Registered Office 117 Newgate Street’ on decorative white stonework between the first and second floors. Over recent years, many different businesses have operated from the ground floor but currently the owners of cafe ‘The Wild Trapeze’. florist ‘Hazy Daisy’, ‘Gold Star Gym’ etc are ensuring it’s looking better cared for than for some years.

If you could help us find out more about the history of the Co-operative movement in Heaton or have photos or memories of any of the stores, we’d love to hear from you.

Chillingham Road School Chillingham Road Primary School (as it now is – there used to be a secondary school on the site too) holds a special place in Heaton’s, and indeed Newcastle’s, history and in the heart of many Heatonians. It’s the oldest still functioning school in Newcastle, with its 120th anniversary celebrations taking place later this year.

A sum of £15,130 15s was sanctioned by the Newcastle School Board to build the school which, when it opened in 1893, was considered to offer the most sanitory environment of any educational establishment in the city, with a state of the art ventilation system comparable with the best in Leicester,Liverpool, Glasgow, Nottingham and other cities. The first head was Mr R H Gilhespy, formerly of Arthur’s Hill School.

It’s also the school one of our best known historical figures, Jack Common, attended – and we can still read about life in Heaton and at the school just before World War 1 in his autobiographical novel ‘Kiddar’s Luck’.

There’ll be a chance to learn more about the history of Chillingham Road Primary School later this year when a programme of events is planned to celebrate its 120th birthday. On Wednesday 23 October Heaton History Group and the school will jointly present a talk about Jack Common by Dr Keith Armstrong. More details to follow.

The photograph above dates from 1966 and is held by Local Studies at Newcastle Central Library.

Heaton Park Pavilion The original pavilion was erected in 1884 as an aviary housing exotic birds and animals. It looked out over a croquet lawn and, beyond that, a bowling green. You can read what Jack Common said about the pavilion in a previous blog. It was later extended to accommodate a cafe and other facilities. A lot of people think the original building still stands but it was badly damaged by fire in 1979.

The surviving ironwork was restored at Beamish Museum and, painted in typically Victorian shades of dark red, black, cream and olive, used in a new building, which was made from handmade yellowed bricks. The reconstruction won a Civic Trust award. It is currently occupied by Sambuca, an Italian restaurant.

Its history, Victorian elegance and association with carefree summer days in the park combine to make it one of Heaton’s favourite building.

Thanks to Heaton History Group Honorary President, Alan Morgan, for the above information. You can read more and see photographs in his book ‘Heaton: from farms to foundries’ or better still come to his illustrated talk on 22 May. Contact chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org to reserve a place.

And thanks to Newcastle Libraries for the image of the old postcard, which is undated.

High Heaton Library The most modern building on the shortlist and the third library to have been built the site. It was designed by Ryder Architecture Limited (who were also responsible for the City Library) and was commended in the 2009 Public Library Building Awards. its curving façade and intimate scale seem to contributes to its welcoming feel. Click on the third link below to see it looking beautiful by night. Sadly it’s due to close in June this year.

Here are links to images of the three libraries:

Wooden building taken in 1966 (Thank you to Newcastle Libraries)

Circular library taken in 1967 (Thank you to Newcastle Libraries)

Third library taken in 2009 (Thank you to Paul J White)

Corner House When you see the the Corner House, you know you’re nearly home to Heaton, standing prominently as it does at the corner of Heaton Road and the Coast Road. The Corner House was built at the same time as the Lyric cinema (now People’s Theatre). It’s changed quite a bit over the years but, empty roads aside, is still immediately recognisable in this photo taken in 1936 soon after it opened.

We especially like the Corner House because it’s where our 2013/4 programme of talks will kick off on April 17th with John Grundy’s Buildings of Heaton.

Hadrian’s Wall Ok, this last nomination is a bit contentious. Is it in Heaton? We think so. It forms the southern boundary of our catchment area and would definitely have been considered part of Heaton, when it was an independent township until the early 20th Century. We’re historians. It’s in. Is it a building? Debatable. The accepted definition usually involves some sort of shelter and human occupancy, but there were turrets every 500 metres or so and so we reckon the whole structure was, therefore, one very long building. And a lot of the foundations are still down there – somewhere. At nearly 2000 years old, it’s by far the oldest structure in Heaton, the most popular tourist destination in Northern England and the only World Heritage Site on our list so it’s got to be in the running. You can follow the line of it marked out by studs on the south side of Shields Road. And also we wanted an excuse to mention that we’ve just booked Paul Bidwell OBE, Head of Archaeology at Tyne and Wear Museums and expert on Roman archaeology, to give a talk later in our 2013/4 programme. Watch this space!

We had to stop there, although we realise that there were other contenders, many of which we’ll feature on this website over the coming months.

Top Seven

The top seven, announced on 17 April 2013, and listed here in reverse order were:

7th – Ringtons HQ

6th – People’s Theatre

=4th – Beavans and Heaton Park Pavilion

3rd – the old Heaton Road Co-op

2nd – Wills Building

and the winner: Saint Gabriels Church

Thank you to everyone who voted and congratulations to FW Rich, architect, and everyone associated with the church!