• Each page, except those stated below, has an "emblem goat", used, at one time, by the Local Authority before this, 


  • the current Gate and Helmet design and, still, by many local institutions and groups.
    The exceptions are Windmill Hills which has a windmill, Windy Nook which has a burning brand, Heworth has a cup and coins, Rabbit Banks has a rabbit, Parks has oak leaves Bridges has a bridge, Angel of the North has an angel, Felling Town Centre has a tree stump and Pawnbrokers has three balls



  • Here's a couple of badges with the goat design

    This website features material from
    *The iSee website*
    now replaced by

    this new site

    Click the link and then put in the internal search facility whatever you're looking for

  •  The Felling Heritage Group brings you this online collection of photographs and information based on

    *iSee Gateshead*

    The number of iSee photographs used on this site has been reduced, and continues to be reduced at the request of Gateshead Local Studies who present their now watermarked image collection online here. Non watermarked images can be used if bought from the Council.. details below on this page. If this site inspires you to see more go to the Council's website
    *
    TFHG's own collection based on the original*
    collection of Peter Hayward

  • *Iconic pictures with, wherever possible, a link to
    the source website,and including some by members
    of  The Felling Heritage Group
  • * Youtube Videos*
    and a number of other diverse sources...

    Go here to see a fabulous, jaw dropping
    Gateshead pic



    Great Exhibition


  •  ....This one is from the Beamish collection of photos. It is of James Burke and a BBC crew filming the Gateshead No 10 Tram at Beamish

    and including  other 
    non/out of copyright photographs and copyrighted photographs, with permission
    or by the author of this website

  • Here's a pic just cos' it's nice and sets the scene

    L. Pashby's Store, 9 Durham Road, Low Fell, Gateshead c1909.


  • For a Haven sent Holiday Break
    Click this Link

  •  
    iSee was a two 
    year project (2005-2007) to digitise non/out of copyright images contained in Gateshead's Local Studies' collection. The project was funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Gateshead's photograph collection includes over 10,000 images of the Gateshead Borough from the 1860s onwards. The collection, it's said, forms a unique social and political history of Gateshead, its people and its surroundings.

    Project staff and volunteers digitised and researched over 5000 images for the project. Although the project has officially ended, volunteers have continued to work with the collection, scanning and adding more images each week.
    The Hayward collection specifically about The Felling district was also gathered over many years and now features 
    in the regular history exhibitions staged by

                The Felling Heritage Group
    which is willing to stage exhibitions, on request

    As stated above the iSee Gateshead historic picture collection is now on
  • The website you're now viewing has a lot of photographs of houses, pubs and schools and one major function is so that the local area can be seen by genealogists from around the World. Jon Bratton, the main author of this website, made himself familiar with the internal search facility of the iSee website and was able to answer queries raised. It was the non-findability of the website's content by Google that prompted the development of this website. If you are a genealogist wanting to see where your ancestors lived, and can't find what you're looking for, email to jon@jbratton.com



  • Title:  44-54 High Street, Gateshead, c1889
      by Knowles, W.H.
    Date:  C1889
    Reference Number:  GL004052
    Harrison's Cooperage, Thos. Ryan Butcher, our first Lidl store, John Wood

    A Plug for a Pal



  • Gateshead's rich history is here in a searchable form
    ...of use, in particular to genealogists, who could be anywhere in the World and want to see where their "Heed" ancestors came from
    Additional photographs will also be added from other collections sent in by contributors

    Samples

    Brunswick Street, Barn Close, Gateshead
    Date:  C.1936
    Reference Number:  GL002685
      Looking North from the front of Number 199.


    The Barn Close flats were the first multi-storey blocks on Tyneside. They were completed in 1956 and consisted of 196 dwellings in four t-shaped blocks with communal roof-top walking areas.

    The flats were built on the site of some of Gateshead's worst slum housing (pictured). Under the Housing Act of 1930 the Council was given much greater legal power to deal with slum housing and whole areas could be demolished. Barn Close was the first area to be tackled after an enquiry in 1932 revealed conditions of extreme squalor (one basement was found to contain 11 people). Between 1932 and 1935 Barn Close and other slum areas at Pipewellgate, Hillgate, Bridge Street, Church Street and Old Fold were acquired by compulsory purchase order and demolished. This added to the worsening housing shortage, and with a lack of available land on which to build, the solution was to build upwards.


    Catherine Street in 1963 ..adjoined St Cuthbert's Street
    (St Cuthberts Village area of Teams)
    However bad this was it was no comparison to the bad that was St Cuthberts Village
  • Gateshead Council's Local History Library of photographs is extensive but unfortunately it is largely unsearchable on the internet. Here's an explanation  as to the lack of searchability



  • The lack of house-building during the First World War had caused a serious shortage of housing across Great Britain. In 1919 the Addison Acts required local authorities to assess housing needs and to built new houses for rent.

    In the 1920s new estates were built at Carr Hill, Bensham, Lobley Hill, Old Fold, Wrekenton and Deckham Hall. All houses were to have a scullery, larder, coal store, bath and indoor w.c. The new estates had wide streets lined with trees and were very different from the cramped terraces people were used to.

    The Council also had to address the poor housing conditions in the town centre. The worst areas were close to the river where overcrowding and risk of disease was at its worst. (Taylor, S. & Lovie, D. 2004)

    Under the Housing Act of 1930, the Council was given much greater legal power to deal with slum housing. The Act meant that whole areas of housing could be demolished and between 1932 and 1935 many of the streets in and around the town centre were acquired by compulsory purchase order and demolished. (Manders, 1973)

    House-building came to a stop during the Second World War and overcrowding in Gatesehead once again became a big problem. After the war the Council set to work building new estates at Highfield and Blue Quarries and later at Beacon Lough and Cedars Green.

    However, by the mid 1950s there was a serious shortage of traditional building materials and during the 1950s and 1960s concrete was used to build modern ‘high rise’ housing. The new building schemes were combined with a vigorous programme of slum clearance and by 1970s rows of terraces in Bensham, the Teams area and Central Gateshead had been demolished.

    "St Cuthberts Village will remain forever as the most monstrous failure of the Architect's/Town Planners/ Housing Allocation professions"

    Jon Bratton, a Gateshead lad
  • In almost every iconic picture of Newcastle, historically,



    it is Gateshead that occupies the foreground.

    Just saying...

    Currently, because of the Sage, Millennium Bridge and

    the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, it is, often, the

     other way round

    BOTN

    Back of the net !


  • A very large number of the photographs in the Council collection were taken as part of mass slum clearance by the Council after legislation in 1930 empowered them to compulsory purchase sub standard housing. This website will carry some of the hundreds of such photos, for the benefit of genealogists and will direct them to the Gateshead Council website
    Good examples like the following, drammed up for effect, will be included

    For Sale
    Sought after property in up and coming
    Pipewellgate

    A Tenement you've always dreamed of. Fabulous river view. Dead handy for The Toon
    £1,000,000 ono
    Needs some work, big styley
  •  


  • The subsoil on the sloping side of the hill is damp and most foul, the brickwork of the buildings is ruinous, the timber rotten; and an appearance of general decay pervades the whole district … Single rooms are let off as tenements which are crowded with men, women and children; the walls are discoloured with age, damp and rot; the windows are broken, old rags, straw and boards occupying the place of glass, so that means of light and ventilation alike are absent





  • Have a chuckle at a bairn's prank drawing on the bath tub on the wall



  • it's wor heritage!...in pictures and words