Palmers Estate Wallsend

[Irish Geordie]

Hello,

I'm looking for any leads on Palmers Estate Wallsend. Despite trawling through the archives of the local studies department I have found nothing either text based or photographic which refers to this part of Wallsend, apart from Ward directories.

I have a particular interest in Fourth Street (No. 17), but any general information would be welcomed.

From what I can establish it was built in the 1880's and was demolished post WWII.

Thanks

Irish Geordie

[audrey]

http://www.newsguardian.co.uk/lookingback/Palmers-Buildings.5446273.jp

audrey

[Irish Geordie]

Audrey,

Thanks for your incredibly rapid response!

Irish Geordie

[Pegasus36]

Hello,

I'm looking for any leads on Palmers Estate Wallsend. Despite trawling through the archives of the local studies department I have found nothing either text based or photographic which refers to this part of Wallsend, apart from Ward directories.

I have a particular interest in Fourth Street (No. 17), but any general information would be welcomed.

From what I can establish it was built in the 1880's and was demolished post WWII.

Thanks

Irish Geordie

Hello.

My Birth certificate states that I was born 4 Charles street Palmers buildings.
However I can only remember living at 14 Gertrude Street...These houses were still in use when I departed for Australia 26th November 1959... however on my return 1963...my grandparents, whom I stayed with while in Wallsend, had been moved to Rose Hill and the buildings in question were gone.

   Bob.

[Irish Geordie]

Bob,

My great grandfather owned a grocers at number 17 Fourth Street. He lived above the shop and also owned four flats in the street, but I have no idea which numbers.

I found the ward directories particularly useful for finding out who lived at 17 after they left - you may be able to work out how long your family lived there via this method, it's a bit more accurate than the census.

I get the impression that the buildings may have suffered co-lateral damage during WW2 as the bombers tried to hit the ship yards, and were demolished as a consequence.

I'd worked out that the clearance must have taken place Circa 1958, and your 1959 date would tie in. I tried to find a definitive date in the regional archives but had no joy.

Thanks for your reply.

Irish

[Hazel Wallis]

I lived at 27 Palmers Street until 1965 when I was 7 years old. It had 2 bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen and living room downstairs. We only had cold running water and an outside toilet. As a "bairn" I was washed in the kitchen sink or once a week in a tin bath which was put I front of the coal fire in the living room. It is unbelievable to think that is how we lived but it is all we knew.

[Irish Geordie]

Hazel and Pegasus 36,

Thanks for your posts.

Hazel - sounds like the flats had been converted into a house when you were living there. From what I can tell the estate was all "tyneside flats" when it was built. I found the original architect's plans for my ggf's flats at TWAS, Blandford Square.

Sounds like the estate may have been pulled down piece meal if you were there in '65. Pegasus36's home went between '59 & '63.

Irish

[Hazel Wallis]

Perhaps I have the work area. The place I grew up was called Palmers buildings. It was between the Davy Bank and the railway line. They were always houses, I believe for either miners or ship builders.

[Guthlac]

From page 4 of the Shields Daily Gazette, 10 March 1884 - an article headed Wallsend Redivivus

During the many years of depression prior to 1879 the land remained vacant, but on the revival of trade about that date the company began to consider the utilization of the land and decided to commence the erection of workmen’s dwellings.  The “housing of the poor” a question which in various circles has of late been much commented upon, has always been with employers of labour brought daily into contact with their workmen a matter of deep consideration, and, in many cases, of practical effort.  A scheme was formulated, Mr Palmer himself suggesting that its basis should be the providing of self-contained dwelling houses for working men, each house having a separate yard securing privacy and banishing these eternal bickerings regarding washing day “turns” &c which form the casus belli of many a domestic struggle.  Arrangements were made whereby the erection of a large number of houses at one time might so reduce the cost as to enable the promoters to offer each working man a house, at a price, which, through a building society he could purchase through weekly or monthly payments, in many cases scarcely equalling the rent hitherto paid for a decent dwelling. … The result of this scheme was that on the Palmer estate alone there has been erected upwards of one hundred neat and commodious dwellings occupied by working men and in a few years to become their own property “for all time”. 

There is quite a bit more in the article about the early development of Wallsend.

Regards