Category: Heritage

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Walk the bounds – a tour of High West Jesmond

Join us for a fascinating tour of High West Jesmond and learn more about the history of our community

We are delighted to invite you to a walking tour of ‘the bounds’ of High West Jesmond led by Chris Morgan who has already kindly shared some of his photographs of High West Jesmond’s past that we have featured on this webesite.

Date: Sunday 3 June 2018

Time: 10.30am

Meeting place: outside Delicious Decadence, Newlands Road, NE2 3NT

The tour will take approximately 2 hours and will explain the last 200 years of this special area on the border of Jesmond and Gosforth.

It will be illustrated with many old photographs and tales from Chris Morgan’s personal memory and those of his mother who played here before many of the houses were built.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday 3 June.

Download a copy of the Walking the Bounds of High West Jesmond event poster here. 

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1967 – A back lane in High West Jesmond

Work in progress, a back lane in High West Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1967

A heritage posting from Chris Morgan

Cones had still to be discovered. Red oil lamps were almost as common.

At this time many houses still had coal fires and most had two trap doors penetrating the brickwork into the lane. One was a small wooden door, higher than those shown here.

The coal men would unload hundredweight (about 50 kilos) bags of coal through the doors into the coal shed behind. The coal men carried the bags on their backs with ease.

By the time of this picture most of the trap doors had been bricked up and the coalmen would walk into the yard before tipping the sacks into the shed.

Nothing would be delivered on a Monday as that was washing day with all the family washing hung on lines criss-crossing the lanes.

The two openings showing here were large metal bins that tilted outwards. They were an innovation from the time the houses were built in the 1905-10 period and were designed to empty into a refuse cart in the lane. I never saw them used like that in my time, from 40 years later.

Originally the waste was mostly ash from the coal fires. Shopping came wrapped in paper bags or cardboard that went on the fire. There’d be a few tins, but most bottles had a returnable deposit paid at the shop that sold them.

Then we had dustbins that made good big wickets when we played back lane cricket – over the wall is 6 and out!

Last time I looked down the lanes I noted there were still a very few of these little doors that hadn’t been bricked up.

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1964 – Paviers at work, Kingswood Avenue, Newcastle

 

It’s the little details you forget!

Workmen with cloth caps, no high visibility jackets and no machinery to help lift heavy paving slabs. Compo style turned down wellies.

A heritage posting from Chris Morgan

Those wires leading up the walls – radio aerials. Telephone wires were at the back of these properties. Many had overhead wires for Redifusion, a forerunner of today’s cable services.

The polished brass door bell on the house to the right. And all those milk bottles. In those days there were 3 separate milk delivery companies vying for business in this street – Co-op Creameries, Jesmond Farm Dairies and Peter Knox.

Early mornings were quite noisy with all those deliveries of clinking bottles. (Newspapers were delivered from 2 different newsagents and virtually every house had a paper each morning, and most an evening paper as well.)

The leaded windows – and that yellow front door that was quite prominent amongst the mostly green doors of the time.

Not only were the doors usually green but so were the window frames and the door surrounds, as was the house on the left.

The heavy front doors usually left open all day, with an inner porch door that probably wasn’t locked either!

Although all the terraces in Newcastle looked much the same, in truth they weren’t.

Built to a basic standard laid down by the original landowners, these properties in High West Jesmond were built in twos, effectively as a line of linked semis.

The house to the left has a pitched red tiled roof over the bay window, the next has a flat, leaded, roof. The deeds stipulated the type of bricks, stone, and slate to be used on the roof. They even said the mortar had to be black.

The repointing round the yellow door way shows that by the 1960’s such conditions were being overlooked.

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1964 – Manure delivery, Moorfield allotments, Newcastle

Dad had a contact at Newcastle Breweries stables where the dray horses were kept, but this small load of manure probably came from somewhere else.

A heritage posting from Chris Morgan

Excellent stuff for improving the allotment!

Taken at top of Newlands Road on Moorfield just as the rain stopped and we prepared to unload into wheel barrows.

In the 1950 and 1960s there were still horse drawn carts around High West Jesmond.

There was a fruit and vegetable man who went up and down the back lanes.

There were rag and bone men who’d do the same crying out “Any old rags or bones or lumber” – although you’d be hard pressed to make out what exactly they were saying!

There was even a coal cart in the 1950s loading coal from the yard at West Jesmond station.

And there were dray horses who brought manure from Scottish & Newcastle’s stables. They were usually larger carts than this one, with two horses.

The house on the corner was occupied by the Brocker family. Mrs Brocker was the first head teacher at Kenton Comprehensive’s girls section.

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1964 – The Great North Road (the old A1)

More nostalgia, a quiet day on the old A1, Great North Road in June 1964 before the Civic Centre was fully completed.

A heritage posting from Chris Morgan

Great North Road, Newcastle, looking south from end of Moorfield, 1964

Little Moor on left, Dukes Moor on right.

Blue House corner ahead, then the Town Moor proper.

Before yellow lines and red routes, police notice in blue ‘No parking in roadway’ was enough.

Before the Civic Centre, just visible in the distance, had received it’s carilion topping.

Before the A1 had been bypassed, first to the east through the Tyne Tunnel (now the A19), then to the west.

And only just after the trolley bus wires had been removed from the old tram poles.

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A new website for High West Jesmond

Welcome to High West Jesmond!

Today we are launching our new High West Jesmond website, which aims to bring together information on several different community groups plus local information and news for residents living in High West Jesmond and for those with a connection to High West Jesmond.

A thriving urban community

Many of you will already know that High West Jesmond is a thriving urban community in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne.  We are well situated between Jesmond and Gosforth – and between the Town Moor and Jesmond Dene.

Our great situation means that our residents engage easily with the wider city and its wonderful hinterland.

Community groups

You may have noticed on our home page that we have featured on 4 aspects of High West Jesmond and this website contains some information on the following groups:

High West Jesmond Residents’ Association (HWJRA)

HWJRA was established to support the residents of the local area: to promote the benefit of the inhabitants of High West Jesmond by working to maintain and improve the quality of life, preserve the character of the area and ensure that development does not adversely affect the local environment; and to assist residents in exercising their rights as members of the community including empowering them in dealing with statutory and other relevant authorities.

Blue House Roundabout

We represented High West Jesmond residents in their opposition to the original plans to build a ‘motorway style’ Blue House Roundabout on the green land of the Town Moor in 2016 and we have been actively representing residents views as a core member of the Blue House Roundabout Working Group since this was established in autumn 2016.

Communal bins

We have also been representing residents views on the proposal to introduce communal bins into High West Jesmond.  It is fair to say that this proposal has not been popular – in fact 95% of High West Jesmond residents voted AGAINST communal bins in a recent poll.

Streets for People

We are also involved with work that the council has initiated for streets for people as Jesmond is one of three areas of Newcastle where this project is to operate.

We aim to continue to represent and support our community.

Friends of the Valley and Little Dene (FOVALD)

FOVALD was established to manage, maintain and protect the open spaces in High West Jesmond known as The Valley and Little Dene.

FOVALD has a vision for a local park that provides opportunities for local residents, including children, families, young and older people, to play, relax and socialise and also where the surrounding vegetation, including trees, shrubs and plants, and the stream, are managed and maintained to not only provide an attractive setting but also to encourage nature conservation and wildlife.

Lending a Hand to maintain our green spaces

In addition members of our community have been Lending a Hand to maintain the green spaces in High West Jesmond – a group of volunteers now meet every week and have made a real difference to the quality of live in our community. FOVALD oversees this work and we are grateful to the volunteers for their time and hard work.  You can read more about the work of Lending a Hand on this website.

Allotments

High West Jesmond has three seperate allotment sites at:

  • Little Moor Allotments
  • Triangle Allotments
  • High West Jesmond Allotments

Our allotments are an inegral part of our community and we aim to add further information on them in the coming weeks.

Businesses

If you operate a business in or from High West Jesmond and you are interested in being featured on our businesses page then please get in touch with us.

Whether you operate from one of the retail outlets across High West Jesmond or your business is run from your High West Jesmond home this is your opportunity to reach your local community and set out the products or services that your provide.

News

We will update information on our standing pages from time to time, but the best place to find out the latest information is via our News pages.

Heritage

We have included a number of posts on this website regarding the heritage of High West Jesmond, including memories and photographs from some of our current and former residents.

You can see these items by selecting Heritage from the Categories side bar on this webpage.

If you have any old photographs and memories relating to High West Jesmond we would love to heard from you! Please contact us via the Contact page.

New digital communications

As part of the work to create this website we have reloaded a good number of ‘back stories’ – these are things that did happen and communications and news that was circulated around our community over the past year. You can see these on our News pages.

In the past as we did not have a website to anchor our content on at the time our earlier communications were by:

  • hard copy newsletters/leaflets through the door;
  • by email for those who had signed up to distribution lists; and
  • via the community noticeboard outside the shops on Newlands Road.

This website now provides a further digital platform to share information with High West Jesmond residents and those with a connection to our community.

In addition you can follow us on our social media accounts.

Our social media accounts

Facebook

In addition High West Jesmond Residents’ Association (HWJRA) has a Facebook group – if you are a High West Jesmond resident you are welcome to join us at the following link – www.facebook.com/groups/HWJRA/

Twitter

You can also follow us on Twitter – if you are a Twitter user then our handle is @highwestjesmond and you can read our tweets on a computer at the following link – https://twitter.com/highwestjesmond

Instagram

We are on Instagram too – and we would love you to share your photographs of High West Jesmond with us!  if you are an Instagram user then our handle is @highwestjesmond and you can read our tweets on a computer at the following link – www.instagram.com/highwestjesmond/

Thanks for visting our website

Thank you for visiting our website. We hope that you  found it useful finding out more about our High West Jesmond community in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

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