Search Site

Up “The Toon”

Along South Road

Photographs relating to this article, including those in this extract, may be found in Gallery 1.02

South Road was originally Prudhoe’s main street. It was a continuation of the steep hill which climbed from Ovingham Bridge and Prudhoe Station (the station sign read ‘Prudhoe for Ovingham’ until the 1960’s). The original village consisted of ribbon development on both sides of this road. In the 1940’s and 1950’s there were still several shops and other businesses on South Road. When being sent to the greengrocers, for example, you were always told to go “up the town”. Perhaps it would be nice if this part of South Road – from the Road Ends up to St Matthew’s Hall could be renamed “Old Town” as a reminder of its history.

Until 1940 the first building at the bottom of South Road (the north end) was Siddle Robinson’s blacksmith’s shop and some 13 years after being demolished the land on which it had stood was made into a bus lay-by and new public toilets and a bus shelter was built. Previous to this, the bus stop had been approximately where the Northern Rock Bank was.

The shop opposite this was owned in the 1940/50’s by Miss Hannah Currey and sold sweets, cigarettes and fancy goods. The shop was quite small – less than half the size of the present R S Salon premises until recently occupied by the Prudhoe Community Partnership, and was well known for the fact that Miss Currey had as much stock on the customer side of the counter as was on the shelves!

When Miss Currey moved to larger premises on Front Street, now Bairstow Eves, the shop was taken over by the Blaydon Co-op Chemists., In 1969 it became Proctor & Waters Insurance Brokers and extended further down Front Street by taking over Len Swan’s gentleman’s hairdressers next door and the first room of the house beyond that. Colonnade Insurance Brokers took over Proctor & Waters until their business was transferred to their Team Valley branch in the mid 1990’s.

Our tour of South Road now continues from north to south up the east side of the street. Prudhoe Working Men’s Club (Big Club) occupies the former Palace Cinema and Ballroom. In its early days it showed magic lantern slides then moving pictures accompanied by a talented pianist. As a ballroom it was very fine with a large dance floor, a stage for the band and a surrounding balcony. The space between the balconies has been floored to make two floors for club activities.

The façade of the building has changed considerably. In its early days it was a mixture of brick and stucco with a wrought iron and glass canopy over its central entrance and two small shops at one side. At one time one of those was a fruit shop and the other a ladies hairdressers. Now the shops have gone and all the old brickwork and plaster has been hidden behind plain featureless bricks which stretch from ground level to the roof.

A few doors further up the road is the Fox and Hounds Inn, a Victorian pub which still had cosy partitioned cubicles until the early 1960’s, although it has been considerably modernised since. During the war it sported a sign depicting fox and hounds which stretched from the pavement across the forecourt to the wall of the pub. On old maps a pub on this site was called “The Barley Mow”.

Next to this was Prudhoe’s old post office, once a single storey building with a first floor added later. Its original post box built into the wall was replaced by an Edward VII version. Two concrete steps at the base meant that children could reach to post their letters. A childhood recollection of David Walker is of the interior in the 1940’s being a room with a concrete floor and a counter with a wire mesh screen over it, through which customers and staff communicated. There were also two dark painted wooden public telephone kiosks with doors. When the post office was relocated from the old main street to its present position on Front Street in the 1950’s, the same postbox was transferred to the new site and there it remained until it was replaced by a pillar box early in 1999.

South Road c. 1890
The single storey building was the Post Office

The old post office is now a cottage and beyond it are three more cottages, two of which bear the Percy Crescent, showing that they were built for the Duke of Northumberland. They have delightful cottage gardens at the front, and a lane at the back, across which occupants would go to visit the ‘netty’, put their rubbish in the midden and probably feed the pigs which many families kept in purpose-built sties.

The next house up the hill was known as Brick House and behind it was Brick House Yard where a number of families lived in small flats. Brick House was originally occupied by the owner of Edgewell Brickworks and was no doubt built using bricks of his own manufacture. The bricks were not particularly attractive, and in the 1970’s were covered by plaster rendering.

After Brick House we arrive at two houses attractively built of stone. The house on the comer was once a shop and when it was converted to a house the corner doorway was built up.

One of Prudhoe’s most important old houses was Prudhoe House on the brow of the hill. This was originally the home of Anthony Humble. Prudhoe House used to be surrounded by a high stone wall and around it stood a wood of oak trees from which the Oaklands Estate got its name. It was in the grounds of Prudhoe House that John Wesley preached on 2nd June 1757. Wesley in fact visited Prudhoe on several occasions staying as a guest at Colliery Farm and inspired the populace so much that they built a large Wesleyan Chapel or meeting house on land behind the Locomotive Inn. No trace of this building now remains, not even the foundations.

In more recent years an upper room in Prudhoe House served as Prudhoe Urban District Council’s chambers. This was a large room with a fine 18th Century plasterwork ceiling. The downstairs rooms served for some years as the Prudhoe office of the Department of Employment. During the war the air raid siren was fixed to the roof of this building. This was later used to call out the local firemen. The house has now been converted into sheltered accommodation for people with learning difficulties.

Over “The Lane” is a small terrace of cottages, all old, but not all of the same age. Some of these were built as single storey dwellings which had first floors added later. At the end of this terrace was a tiny shop which was demolished in the 1970’s.

At this point, South Road forks to form an island on which St Matthew’s Social Centre (formerley RC Church hall) is situated. This hall was opened in 1885 having been built after the death of Matthew Liddell, wealthy coal owner and occupant of Prudhoe Hall. His widow was apparently determined to have his name immortalised in the name of this hall built for the use of the local Catholics.

On the south side of the ‘island’ is a small row of cottages, the western most of which once served as a little school. Here children whose parents could afford the fees of a few pence could receive some basic education.

Continuing up the eastern side of South Road we come to St Thomas Mews, built in the 1990’s on the site of the former St Thomas Terrace, a row of brick houses and flats, the upstairs flats being reached by outside stone steps built at right angles to the rear of the terrace. These in turn had replaced a much older St Thomas Terrace, a row of charming but primitive single storeyed dwellings, whitewashed and thatched, which had burned down in a great storm in 1897.

Colliery Farm Cottages (on the right) c. 1900. The cottages housed farm workers and the end one was probably Prudhoe’s first school. Just past the wooden building on the left was the entrance to the’ Show Field’. 

End of 19th Century photograph of thatched cottages. They stood at St Thomas Terrace below The Grange and burned down in 1897. They were replaced by flats and houses of cheap brick which were demolished in 1970. They included upstairs flats reached by external steps to the rear. Note the stone steps (stile) leading over the wall.

The terrace was named after the medieval chantry chapel, later subsumed into The Grange. The houses known as St Thomas Close stand on the site of old farm buildings which had belonged to the Colliery Farm. One of these buildings housed a cowshed and a steam driven corn mill which had a tall brick chimney and was still working in the 1920’s.

All that remains of the Colliery Farm is the fine old farmhouse which, until the 1980’s, had a farmyard behind, the other three sides being enclosed by farm buildings. The byre, stables and other ancillary buildings were demolished and rebuilt as houses closer to the rear of the farmhouse. The actual farmland is now occupied by Oaklands and part of Hillcrest housing estate.

Apparently the top of South Road, at one time, was the site of the local brothel. In the 1930’s this became a pickle factory and it is said that the workers in the factory could easily be identified because of their red eyes!

A few houses further south we come to a short terrace of brick and stucco. These are British Legion houses built in 1928/29 for ex-service men.

At this point, we come to the entrance of Oaklands Estate built by Prudhoe Urban District Council in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s. It is also at this point that South Road comes to an end and Drawback begins.

Crossing over to the west side of the road, we can retrace our steps back northwards to the junction of South Road with Front Street.

The junction on the left is the beginning of Moor Road which has some particularly attractive early 20th Century houses, mainly on the west side.

Proceeding northwards down South Road, we pass more houses including Grange Terrace built in 1912. Much of the large house now called “The Grange and West Grange” and formerly “The Hall” contains fabric from the Chantry of St Thomas the Martyr, including a fine Norman doorway, still visible on the south façade. The main door of the house, which can be seen from the road, is effectively the back door.

W S Gibson in his “Notices of some Remarkable Northumbrian Castles, Churches and Antiquities” (pub 1848) refers to The Grange which he says was modernised in the early 1800’s but “which contains evidence that it is of ecclesiastical foundation which sufficiently testify to its ancient character; and it is probable that this very edifice arose from, and, until its defacement, commemorated the pious gift of Richard d’Umfraville”.

The building was founded for masses to be sung for dead relatives of the D’Umfraville’s and was once a retreat for the monks of Tynemouth. The Percies, however, upon inheriting the property allowed it to fall into disrepair, though it is rumoured that some of Cromwell’s troops were billeted there. From the chapel’s stone The Grange was rebuilt and this, in turn, was converted in 1951-2 into two houses. In 1982 the then owners started upon alterations to the building and during the course of this work, human bones were found. This led to strange happenings, such as the sound of children’s voices which could not be explained. This resulted in the building being exorcised in 1989.

The Grange c. 1910

Chantry Cottage in front of The Grange was formerly stabling for pit ponies from Colliery Farm and was only converted into a house in the 1980’s when Mrs Wood moved in to be near her daughter who lived in The Grange. Many stories are told of hauntings at The Grange and Mrs Wood also reported at least one ghostly visitation at Chantry Cottage. The pit ponies worked at West Wylam Colliery. Working ponies were actually kept underground at the pit, and it is possible that they were kept in Chantry Cottage only when the pit was closed for holidays.

Now we return to the ‘island’ surrounded by roads. The cottage which had once been a little school was occupied in the late 19th/early 20th century by the horse keeper of the coal company. The rest of the Colliery Farm cottages were occupied by farm workers. St Matthew’s Hall was opened in August 1885 built with money from Susanna Liddell, widow of Matthew Liddell, who built Prudhoe Hall. During World War II this hall was used for a time as a cookhouse and mess hail for soldiers stationed nearby.

Over the road to the West of the ‘island’ lie some very attractive old houses. Quarry House marks the beginning of Highfield Lane (or as local people used to call it Quarry Lonnen) and Far Town House is a former farmhouse which still has the remains of a bakehouse in its front garden and may still have its impressive “double netty”.

The building now used as an evangelical church was originally the Roman Catholic School of St Matthew, until this moved to brand new premises on Highfield Lane in the 1970’s. The school was first opened in August 1876. In 1877 a schoolhouse for the teacher was provided.

Mr Potts, the butcher, lived in The Mount early in the 20th Century although he had previously lived in Prudhoe House, just across the road. To the left of his double fronted house was his butcher’s shop. In the days of Prudhoe Urban District Council the premises were used as council administration offices. They were then occupied by NOMIS computers and now by Brae Bum Care.

A lovely old stone cottage once stood on the ground which lies between South Road and the small car park. It was demolished in the 1950’s after being used for storing council documents. These days such a lovely house would probably have been protected from demolition. Part of it can be seen on the left of the photograph.

We are now at the junction with Fair View. Until the early 1950’s a red brick public urinal stood on the comer below the end of the Fair View cottages. For some years before it was demolished, it was unusable, being in a ruinous state and littered with rubble. The 25” Ordnance Survey map of 1861 shows that Aaron’s Well was in this vicinity. Could it be that this spring, which would supply locals with their domestic water, was also used to flush the public urinal?

Just to the north of this junction, over a stone wall and up a steep mound, can be seen a large black painted corrugated iron building. This was the local laundry until the 1950’s. It was called the Stocksfield & District Laundry and boasted that all its washing was done using soft water.

The area to the north of this was owned until the 1990’s by the Pulkinghorn family who owned a large amount of property in Prudhoe and also ran a haulage business with a sizeable fleet of lorries. Their lorries were parked and serviced in this area which was bounded to the south by brick cottages and also had a house and shop adjacent to the road. The shop at street level was accessed from the house above by descending a ladder through a trapdoor in the ceiling. One of the Pulkinghorn lorries in the 1920’s was capable of being converted into a char-a-banc by winching off the wagon body and replacing it with the char-a-banc body. This was a popular form of transport for weekend pleasure trips.

Between this area and the Locomotive Inn stood two red brick semi-detached shops and houses. From the 1940’s to 1960’s, the shop to the south was a greengrocer’s and the one to the north was a gentleman’s hairdressers with its red and white striped barber’s pole. The barber was Mr Sowerby. Probably the only style he was ever asked for was a “short back and sides” in which the neck, back and sides of the head were reduced to near baldness and only a small amount of short hair was left on top.

For a few years in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s, Mr Sowerby’s shop became a branch of Smiths Gore Estate Agents until it moved to its new premises on Front Street and acted as agents for the Northern Rock Building Society. All this has now been demolished and in 1999 new flats have been built called Locomotive Court.

The last building now standing at the north end of South Road is the Chinese takeaway. Before this, probably from the early 19th Century, it was the Locomotive Inn, or as it was known locally, ‘Up the Steps’!