RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Northumberland => Topic started by: Cowpen Quay Exile on Sunday 09 October 16 16:17 BST (UK)
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When Blyth Urban District Council built the Avenues housing scheme in the 1920's they decided there would be NO
Thirteenth Avenue because no one would want to live in an " unlucky " number . However they also
missed Twentyfourth Avenue . Why?
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Can we not have some information re this query ? :)
But more hopefully, can some of the more experienced members of the Northumberland page, upload and overlaid an old map onto the current map of Blyth ? As a young boy travelling down to Blyth on the No.39 from Newsham to the centre of the universe, the Avenues were on the left, and always seemed to be there.
What was that area like before they built the estate ? And connected with this, when was Newlands School built ?
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I've been thinking about this off and on since it was posted but don't know the answer.
Actually I can't find quite a few other numbers and did think that some may have been demolished to build Newlands but all the old maps have an empty space where the school was built so perhaps not.
As for what was there before the avenues were built - mostly farm land. There was Barras farm on Plessey Road and another somewhere in the region of PLR school.
Christine
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It seems that none of the forum members lived in the Avenues.
We lived nearby, Kingsway, and for many years I cycled to school on Plessey Rd. (BGS) via 10th and 12th Ave.
The houses were well built, with small gardens. Altogether a very pleasant estate. And not much different in the 90s when I walked through the ?north end from the bus on Plessey Rd., to Broadway, where Mum lived.
But I've no idea why those 2 numbers were omitted. It would need some info from the council records of the 1920s to find out.
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I played in the avenues as a child and one of my grandmothers lived in 7th. I also got to BGS walking up 6th and along 12th but I had no idea at that time that there were any higher numbers than 12 ;D
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When I moved to Blyth I wondered the same, and when I joined the old Blyth Valley Council I asked. No- one could give me a definitive answer.
It was thought that 13th Avenue was omitted through perceived superstition, as per the original post. As for 24th Avenue, consensus of opinion was that a redesign of the estate layout between original planning and building the houses meant that twentyfourth Avenue was not built. I accepted this as plausible and didn't persue it further
I wish I had now, but many of the older planning staff have retired and such a source of information ( and trivia!) has been lost. I still have occasional contact with an old time planning officer, I'll ask him when I see him.
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You can see 24th Avenue on the map at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/430723/580183/12/100709 now called Newlands Avenue.
Stan
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Well spotted, Stan. I had a discussion last night as to whether Newlands Avenue or Newlands Road had been an avenue renamed.
Another challenge - where are/were 16th, 17th and 19th? because I can't find them either!
Christine
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Another challenge - where are/were 16th, 17th and 19th? because I can't find them either!
Christine
They could have been planned where Newlands County Secondary School was built.
Stan
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I suspect that's the most likely explanation. Maps showing the avenues before the school was built have several roads leading into that area but going nowhere. I've assumed that these roads, if completed, would have been the missing avenues. I just wondered whether they were elsewhere and I'd missed them :)
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It sounds as if the Avenues project was part of the Garden City movement, started by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the 1890s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement
We lived in Hull for many years and they have a Garden Village, mostly funded by James Reckitt, as housing for his workers. It's still there and looking good - brother in law lives there.
They used to really care for the welfare of the working classes in those days - compared with now :(
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HI all my family moved into 87 19th avenue when. I was born in 1936 .and New lands school was built about 1951 ,19th ave was changed to 8th ave but can't remember exactly when . Dolly .
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Good one, Dolly! That's 24th and 19th identified - anyone with thoughts on 16th and 17th?
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A little late to reply to this. I think the answer to the missing avenues was the depression, council ran out of money. My parents lived in the avenues from about 1934-5 and I left in 1954. There were stub roads at the top of 6th and the back of 12th on Newlands road which would presumably have led to the missing avenues. Newlands bungalows were privately built, my uncle was living there in 1936.
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Hi.
I lived at No1, Nineteenth Avenue as a child in 1950. It was my grandparents house. It was on the corner in the middle of 26th Avenue and was the only odd numbered house. There were two even numbered houses opposite and the sort road lead to the prefabs which backed on to the Newlands school field. Then we later moved into 29 Twentfifth Avenue which was the last house on the left next to the school field. I lived there until about 1968. This was before the bungalows in the middle of the street were built. I think they may have stopped building when WWII broke out and built prefabs instead and then later the school.