IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Rectory Road, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, NE3 1XQ

An area of allotments on Rectory Road in Gosforth.

A large block of retirement apartments located off The Grove near the centre of Gosforth.

An open area of grassland for recreation off Newlands Road in South Gosforth.

Small area of Parkland on Lodore Road. The Little in the name comes from the comparison with the far larger Jesmond Dene nearby.

A large block of retirement apartments in grounds off The Grove.

The Little Dene, sometimes known as Blackies Valley, formed the boundary between the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne, and Gosforth in the County of Northumberland until local government reorganisation in 1973 brought Gosforth into Newcastle, part of the new Tyne and Wear. The houses on the left are on Rectory Road in Gosforth, all built in the 1950's. On the right are terraced houses, mostly Tyneside flats, at the bottom of Newlands Road in Newcastle probably built in the early 1920's - later than most of the rest of the pre-WW1 High West Jesmond estate. At the bottom of Newlands is a bungalow that had just been built on part of the land that had belonged to The Tyneside Direct Supply Aerated Water Company Limited (the company founded in 1931 and wound up 1981) - the pop factory. As kids we could buy ice lollies from their office. Door to door deliveries of pop were made to all areas from this small site behind the houses. On bonfire night we'd collect broken wooden pop bottle crates to make a bonfire in the valley (before it was filled in) in the foreground. The traditional bonfire carried on for many years on the more sanitised flat area - until health and safety considerations put a stop to it. The picture was taken from Lodore Road, at the bottom of Albemarle Avenue. The valley had been culverted and filled in by this time and top soil was about to be spread over the surface. Today you can hardly see the houses on Rectory Road for the trees that have grown up. I remember clambering on the scaffolding as some of those houses were built. There had been allotments on that side of the valley previously, the last two or three on the steeply sloping sides of the valley surviving until shortly before it was filled in. This is now a grassy play area

This small stream flows east from high on the Newcastle Town Moor near Kenton Bar, and formed the boundary between the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gosforth, which was then in Northumberland. Ultimately it joins the Ouse Burn just beyond the foot of Matthew Bank where it is known as Craghall Dene.. It flowed below the Great North Road roughly where Moor Road now joins Moorfield, that point being known as Little Bridge. By the time the large house Little Dene was built on Lodore Road the stream was in a culvert, probably beside the south side of Moor Road. It emerged to the north-east side of the old house through an ornamental angelic feature in the garden, then flowed at the north side of Lodore Road until the bottom of Newlands Road. This picture was taken from the bottom of Newlands Avenue, looking towards Lodore Road and the bottom of Albemarle Avenue. By this time the trees, mostly willow, had been cleared of and the line of the new culvert had been excavated. This site is now a gently sloping grassy area. Before this it had been a more natural dene, with willow trees, and some sloping allotments on the Gosforth northern side. The south side next to Lodore Road was steeper, comprising building rubble that must have been dumped to make the High West Jesmond site more level when Lodore Road was formed. Note the line of wooden garages on Lodore Road. These could be hired, 2 or 3 storing small Ford vans for the delivery of milk by Jesmond Farm Dairies on Newlands Road (where the convenience store is now). Others were used by local residents. In 1962 very few cars were kept overnight on the roads.

North Jesmond Garage on Lodore Road in the north end of the suburb.

Part of the grid of terraced streets in this part of Jesmond. These streets were built in the early 20th century as superior houses for the expanding middle classes of Newcastle upon Tyne. Jesmond remains a predominately middle class area.

View from outside Ilford Road Metro Station. The terraced streets here date from the early 20th century when this northern part of Jesmond was developed.