Northumberland Gardens, North Walbottle

Image: © Andrew Curtis Taken: 1 Dec 2013

Northumberland Gardens is a small planned estate of 31 mainly semi-detached houses lying between North Walbottle Road and North Walbottle Waggonway, on the western edge of Newcastle. It was designated a conservation area in 1987 because this small suburb of the City is unique to Newcastle and probably Tyneside as a whole in being an early 20th century creation contemporary with the Garden City Movement. The Walbottle Workman's Association, like similar self-help agencies, wished to build adequate artisan houses with a generous allotment of land to provide a measure of self sufficiency in fresh food. In 1910, the estate was laid out and built with mostly paired modest brick houses, large hedged gardens, intended to use as practical small holdings and linked by informal tree-lined private (unadopted) lanes with wide grass verges. The site upon which the estate was constructed was open field until the housing was built. Immediately to the north and east, however, was the site of the Coronation Pit and the line of the North Walbottle Waggonway.

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