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Northumberland / Re: Help with 19th Century addresses in Walker, Willington
« on: Thursday 15 May 14 03:06 BST (UK) »
Hi.
Re: your query about Church Street in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne.
I recall the original Church Street from when I was a child living in Walker in the 1960s - it ran from Welbeck Road, at the site of the Catholic Church of St Anthony of Padua, also a Roman Catholic school. (The Roman Catholic kids and the Church of England kids from the school further down Welbeck Road used to have the odd dust up after school in the 60's - in fact, I found out later that the entire area of Walker used to be known as "little Rome" due to the large numbers of catholics living there, with many descended from Irish immigrant laborers who worked in the local shipyards etc). My father attended the Catholic school as a child. Church Street then ran along past the Church of England Church, or Walker Parish Church (http://www.walkerparishchurch.org.uk/), where my most of my (known) ancestors were married and christened. My maternal Grandfather was buried in the cemetery there in 1935. I keep meaning to search for the other family records.
To put some "flesh on the bones" for the area, I recall Church Street in the mid to late 60s as a straight road probably built in the mid-Victorian period. There were various family run shops - butchers, grocers, chemists, etc, in the era before supermarkets. There were flats above the shops. I can't recall much about the houses there. A treat for us as kids was a visit to the toyshop there. Our old doctors surgery was on or near Church Street, near the Catholic church. My maternal grandparents first home was in Church Street after they married in 1929. Gran described this as one room, which the landlady describes as "furnished" as it had a bed frame and had lino on part of the floor - and charged higher rent accordingly. The street had trams, or trolley buses, running along it. I recall that in the late 60's the area was "redeveloped" and all the old shops were knocked down. A new shopping centre, the Church Walk shopping centre, was built around a central square, with Walker social club along one side. A new doctors surgery (http://www.walkermedical.nhs.uk/) was also built opposite the church and churchyard (about which my grandmother drily remarked, "That's handy" - briefly summing up her opinion of the medical profession). Church Street was originally (to my child's eyes) a straight road, but after the 60's redevelopment it had a "kink" in the road near the Parish church, the route for cars was blocked, and it afterwards ran alongside the park as a footpath only. Walker Park hospital was also near there, and would have been on or very close to Church Street - we used to call this "the accident hospital", as it was where the local parents used to take the kids for treatment for various childhood scrapes - it was probably originally a cottage hospital, probably Victorian. I don't know if it's still there. The original Victorian houses were demolished in the 60s when the area was redeveloped, and new blocks of flats were built to replace these dwellings. (The ones I recall were Walker House, Parade House, Churchwalk House(?), Titan House, and a couple more whose names I can't recall. I believe that Hexham Avenue ended at one end at the old Church Street? I have had a quick look on google maps, and the location of the old Church Street as I knew it is indistinct now - I would guess that it ran somewhere parallell to Duncan Street, or it is possible that Duncan Street is the old Church Street? https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Walker+Parish+Church/@54.9720278,-1.5469255,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xc0187281fc76f65a Trace a path between the Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Church Street and Welbeck Road (http://www.rcdhn.org.uk/churches07/churchcontact.php?chid=205) and Walker Parish Church (http://www.walkerparishchurch.org.uk/), and the footpath running along by Walker Park, and this is where Church Street was, originally. I'm sorry I can't provide any recent info or recollection after the early 80's, as I moved to the south of England, then to Europe, many years ago.
With kind regards.
Re: your query about Church Street in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne.
I recall the original Church Street from when I was a child living in Walker in the 1960s - it ran from Welbeck Road, at the site of the Catholic Church of St Anthony of Padua, also a Roman Catholic school. (The Roman Catholic kids and the Church of England kids from the school further down Welbeck Road used to have the odd dust up after school in the 60's - in fact, I found out later that the entire area of Walker used to be known as "little Rome" due to the large numbers of catholics living there, with many descended from Irish immigrant laborers who worked in the local shipyards etc). My father attended the Catholic school as a child. Church Street then ran along past the Church of England Church, or Walker Parish Church (http://www.walkerparishchurch.org.uk/), where my most of my (known) ancestors were married and christened. My maternal Grandfather was buried in the cemetery there in 1935. I keep meaning to search for the other family records.
To put some "flesh on the bones" for the area, I recall Church Street in the mid to late 60s as a straight road probably built in the mid-Victorian period. There were various family run shops - butchers, grocers, chemists, etc, in the era before supermarkets. There were flats above the shops. I can't recall much about the houses there. A treat for us as kids was a visit to the toyshop there. Our old doctors surgery was on or near Church Street, near the Catholic church. My maternal grandparents first home was in Church Street after they married in 1929. Gran described this as one room, which the landlady describes as "furnished" as it had a bed frame and had lino on part of the floor - and charged higher rent accordingly. The street had trams, or trolley buses, running along it. I recall that in the late 60's the area was "redeveloped" and all the old shops were knocked down. A new shopping centre, the Church Walk shopping centre, was built around a central square, with Walker social club along one side. A new doctors surgery (http://www.walkermedical.nhs.uk/) was also built opposite the church and churchyard (about which my grandmother drily remarked, "That's handy" - briefly summing up her opinion of the medical profession). Church Street was originally (to my child's eyes) a straight road, but after the 60's redevelopment it had a "kink" in the road near the Parish church, the route for cars was blocked, and it afterwards ran alongside the park as a footpath only. Walker Park hospital was also near there, and would have been on or very close to Church Street - we used to call this "the accident hospital", as it was where the local parents used to take the kids for treatment for various childhood scrapes - it was probably originally a cottage hospital, probably Victorian. I don't know if it's still there. The original Victorian houses were demolished in the 60s when the area was redeveloped, and new blocks of flats were built to replace these dwellings. (The ones I recall were Walker House, Parade House, Churchwalk House(?), Titan House, and a couple more whose names I can't recall. I believe that Hexham Avenue ended at one end at the old Church Street? I have had a quick look on google maps, and the location of the old Church Street as I knew it is indistinct now - I would guess that it ran somewhere parallell to Duncan Street, or it is possible that Duncan Street is the old Church Street? https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Walker+Parish+Church/@54.9720278,-1.5469255,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xc0187281fc76f65a Trace a path between the Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Church Street and Welbeck Road (http://www.rcdhn.org.uk/churches07/churchcontact.php?chid=205) and Walker Parish Church (http://www.walkerparishchurch.org.uk/), and the footpath running along by Walker Park, and this is where Church Street was, originally. I'm sorry I can't provide any recent info or recollection after the early 80's, as I moved to the south of England, then to Europe, many years ago.
With kind regards.