A couple of days ago I visited Newcastle's West End Library on Condercum Road for a talk entitled 'Lost Farms of the West End'. The chap who was supposed to be taking the talk, Ian Farrier, was ill and had to hand over the reins at the last minute to a colleague (whose name I don't think we were ever given). Despite the unexpected change of plan, the event was a great success - so my thanks must go to the mystery lady who stepped in.
It is not my intention to fill you in on all the detail here, but suffice to say that, well, being a native of the West End, it was all fascinating stuff. I was born in the General Hospital, lived for 18 months in South Benwell, then moved to, and grew up in, Denton Burn. The talk covered, in the main, Benwell, Elswick and Fenham, but strayed into Kenton, Denton and much else besides. Very, very interesting.
When we think of what the West End was like in the distant past, we imagine that there must always have been plenty going on in what is now, after all, densely populated suburban sprawl. However, up until the mid-1600s the outlying area to the west of Newcastle was almost completely empty, with a scattering of small villages surrounded by a myriad of huge open fields of 'strip farming'. Locals would live in their little village and each family would tend to a handful of specially-allocated strips of land, each located at different sites, often a mile or more apart. The outstanding example of one of these 'little settlements' that still (sort of) exists is Benwell village to the immediate west of Benwell Towers. Additionally, of course, the odd scrap of 'ridge/rigg and furrow' can also be seen here and there, being a remnant of the old strip farming method.
Strip farming was hugely inefficient. So, in time, the local landowners (with the help of various 'Enclosure Acts') scrapped the traditional way of tending the land and created large 'enclosed' fields that could be farmed in a more 'industrial' way. This is pretty much the pattern of the countryside we still see today. It was at about this time, too - the late 1600s onwards - that new farmsteads were created at the centres of these new networks of fields. Some of these old buildings still survive, many have been altered/replaced and a great deal of them demolished. At the same period, these new fields acquired names such as Long Riggs, Cottage Field or Pond Field.
When, in the 1800s and early 1900s, this land found its way back onto the market for sale, property developers moved in and started building houses for the booming industrial classes of the city's suburbs. Only then did we really have intensive human activity in this part of the world. Many of the old field names survived this dramatic transition, and any little villages, hamlets and farmsteads were swept from the map. A few of the old buildings have hung on, but most have disappeared - some within living memory (including mine!).
I'm guessing that this story could be repeated the country over. Makes you hungry for more information!
Two big, big recommendations come from all of this. First of all, there is the website of the St.James' Heritage & Environment Group - a priceless resource for those with West End interests. And secondly, for those with general Newcastle interests, you have simply got to have a look at the group's Newcastle Photo Archive - which is brilliant, covering, as it does, much, much more than the West End.
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