Gosforth
Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, in Tyne and Wear, England, situated north of the city centre. It constituted a separate urban district of Northumberland from 1895 until 1974 before officially merging with the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2001, it had a population of 23,620.
The Ouseburn divides Gosforth from High Heaton and Longbenton to the east, while the smaller Craghall Burn forms the boundary with Jesmond and the Town Moor to the south. Kenton and Coxlodge lie to the west. There are four electoral wards on Newcastle City Council that include parts of Gosforth: Dene and South Gosforth, Fawdon and West Gosforth, Gosforth, and Parklands.
History
The origin of the area's name is thought to have come from 'Gese Ford', meaning 'the ford over the Ouse', referring to a crossing over the local River Ouse or Ouseburn. However, as it is first recorded as 'Goseford' in 1166, others think that the name originates from the Old English 'Gosaford', meaning 'a ford where the geese dwell'. Richard Welford notes that the names of North and South Gosforth come from the north and south of the River Ouse. South Gosforth was first mentioned in 1319, when it was noted that the English Army retreated there from a siege on Berwick. According to the 19th-century publication, A Topographical Dictionary of England, the township of Gosforth was held of the crown by the Surtees family from 1100 to 1509, when it passed by marriage to Robert Brandling.Parishes and urban districts
In 1777, Gosforth contained seven townships of North Gosforth, South Gosforth, Coxlodge, Kenton, Fawdon, East Brunton and West Brunton. By order of the Local Government Board on 20 September 1872, the parishes of South Gosforth and Coxlodge were constituted into a district, governed by the South Gosforth Local Board. In 1894, the Local Government Board was succeeded by Gosforth Urban District Council, based at Gosforth Council Offices.Mining
In the 19th century, Gosforth was the location of a number of collieries, including the Gosforth and Coxlodge Collieries. Gosforth Colliery was located in South Gosforth, while Coxlodge Colliery was west of the Great North Road. Coxlodge Colliery comprised three pits; the Bower Pit, the Regent or Engine Pit, where the Regent Centre now stands, and the Jubilee or North Pit further west on Jubilee Road.Bulman Village
The modern-day centre of Gosforth, straddling the Great North Road, originated in 1826 as a settlement known for several decades as Bulman Village. It originally consisted of a number of properties large enough to qualify occupiers for the franchise, built by the Bulman family in an attempt to provide voters for their cause in the 1826 elections. A stone bearing the name 'Bulman Village' survives and was incorporated in the façade of a later building, the Halifax Bank building north of the Brandling Arms public house.The Blacksmith's Arms public house on Gosforth High Street stands on the site of the original blacksmith's forge.
Population
At the 2001 census there were 23,620 people living in Gosforth. In the 19th century Gosforth's population was largely deemed by the coal trade. In 1801 there were 1,385 inhabitants, most of whom lived in Kenton, and were employed in the colliery there. In 1831 the population had risen to 3,546, partly due to the opening of the Fawdon and Coxlodge collieries. Between 1831 and 1871 the population only grew by a very small amount to 3,723, due to the pits at Fawdon and Kenton having ceased to function.Archaeological finds
There have been a number of archaeological finds in Gosforth, with the earliest piece being a prehistoric flint flake that was found in 1959. In 1863 a 2nd-century Greek Colonial coin was found in a garden in Bulman Village. A Roman altar was found in North Gosforth.Landmarks
Gosforth has a large business complex called the Regent Centre. Gosforth's main high school is Gosforth Academy, and some of the private schools in Gosforth are Westfield School and Newcastle School for Boys. St Nicholas Hospital is also located in Gosforth, which houses the Jubilee Theatre, a Victorian Theatre built in 1899.Areas of Gosforth
Apart from South Gosforth, many residential districts of Gosforth are suffixed "Park". There is Bridge Park, Brunton Park, Gosforth Park, Grange Park, Greystoke Park, Grove Park, Kingston Park, Melton Park, Newcastle Great Park, and Whitebridge Park. There are also two housing estates called Warkworth Woods and Melbury Park. East of the Great North Road, Garden Village was developed on 'garden suburb' lines in the 1920s to house workers at the nearby London & North Eastern Railway electric train depot.Areas of Gosforth have been used as a filming locations for television shows and films. Gosforth Park was used as a location in 1971's Get Carter and Whitebridge Park which was used in an episode of Wire in the Blood. Melton Park has the ruins of a chapel which dates back to early medieval or late Norman times.
Brunton Park is a neighbouring estate to the Newcastle Great Park. The oldest parts in the estate have existed since the early 1930s. The rest of the estate was built during the 1940s and 1950s. It contains a number of local convenience shops. One of the newest expansions of the city is called Newcastle Great Park in the very north of Newcastle.
Sports and entertainment
Gosforth has sports facilities such as Gosforth Swimming Pool. Famous sportsmen from Gosforth include footballer Alan Shearer and athlete Jonathan Edwards. The swimming pool was given a slight revamp during early 2011. Newcastle Racecourse is based in Gosforth Park.Gosforth has had a long connection with local rugby football, currently being home to Newcastle's oldest rugby club, Northern Football Club. Northern's home is McCracken Park located on the Great North Road. Also nearby is namesake of the current incarnation of the Gosforth Rugby Club. The city's rugby club, the Newcastle Falcons, was also originally based in Gosforth, also originally being called Gosforth Rugby Club, and later Newcastle Gosforth. Gosforth Central Park has two bowling greens with a women's and a men's club, two tennis courts, a basketball court and a fenced playground area.
Gosforth has a number of golf courses including the City of Newcastle Golf Club, High Gosforth Golf Course and Gosforth Golf Course, which is a golf course that opened in 1906. Gosforth has been home to the South Northumberland Cricket Club since 1892, which is home itself to the South North Bulls team.
Gosforth formerly had two cinemas, the Royalty Cinema on the high street and the Globe Cinema on Salters Road. The Royalty Cinema opened on 17 October 1934 and closed on 30 December 1981. A video documentary, Last Reel at the Royalty, viewable online was produced about the cinema's history. The Globe Cinema later became a bingo hall and is now Poon's Gosforth Palace Chinese restaurant.
The ground on which the Asda supermarket stands was formerly the Gosforth Greyhound Stadium until the late 1980s and the home of Northumberland RFU. The stadium had also previously been a Speedway Track from 1929 to 1930.
Economy
Businesses
Many businesses have offices in the Regent Centre complex, near the High Street, as well as other business parks including Gosforth Industrial Estate, located near the Metro train sheds, and Gosforth Business Park, located between Gosforth Park and nearby Longbenton.Gosforth houses Jubilee House, the headquarters of the savings and mortgages business of Virgin Money. The building was previously known as Northern Rock House, however in 2008 Northern Rock faced huge difficulties in the subprime mortgage crisis and was nationalised. Virgin Money bought Northern Rock from the British Government in 2012 and promised not to make any of the former Northern Rock employees redundant.
Northern Rock had a landmark tower building, built in the 1960s, which in the 2000s was replaced with a 10-storey office building; Partnership House, as it is now known since being sold by the bank, now houses companies including law firm Clifford Chance and video games developer Ubisoft Reflections. Other resident companies of Regent Centre include the National Health Service.
Greggs, the largest national retail bakery, originally started with John Gregg's single shop on Gosforth High Street in 1951; initially Greggs was known as Greggs of Gosforth. In 1968 Greggs opened their first large-scale bakery on the Gosforth Industrial Estate, but in 2011 moved to a £16.5 million site in Gosforth Business Park on Gosforth Park Way. In 2012 the Greggs on the high street was given a concept makeover depicting their 'Greggs the Bakery' format.
Procter & Gamble formerly had their UK head office in Newcastle. Hedley House, Gosforth, was developed in the 1950s. The principal building in this complex, Hedley House itself was designed by Sidney Burn, staff architect to Thos. Hedley & Co., soap manufacturers, in association with consultant architect Anthony Chitty. In 1963/64 an addition to the site included a computer block by Basil Spence. The landscape setting was designed by B. Hackett. The 1994 extension to the site won the 1994 new building category in the Lord Mayor's Design Awards. Procter & Gamble left the site in 2001 to move to Cobalt Business Park, near the eastern city boundary with North Tyneside, and the Gosforth land is now used for residential properties.
The Sage Group had its headquarters in Newcastle Great Park ; another office complex called Esh Plaza is also located in Newcastle Great Park. In 2004 Sage moved its headquarters to this location from a site near Haddricks Mill Roundabout, and moved again to Cobalt Park in 2021.
Commerce
Gosforth High Street has been home to local shops for over a hundred years. In 1979 the Gosforth Shopping Centre opened on the High Street and connects to Gosforth Central Park; shops here include a Sainsbury's and a WHSmith. There is also a branch of Virgin Money and a Cancer Research charity shop. The park was created on the site of a former nursery for £10,000 and opened on 6 August 1932. A theatre stood on part of the site of the Gosforth Shopping Centre. The stage faced the park and a huge door could be opened to entertain an outdoor audience. The theatre was damaged in a fire shortly before the Shopping Centre was built.Many shops have come and gone from Gosforth High Street over the years, including familiar names such as: Robinson's Pet Shop which was near Elmfield Road; Boydell's Toys on the corner of Hawthorn Road; Maynard's sweet shop, the Toddle Inn Cafe and Laidlaw's hardware and decorating store – all of which were situated opposite the junction with St Nicholas Avenue; and Moods – a stationery and gift shop – which stood where the Gosforth Centre is now, opposite Ivy Road.
The high street had a Woolworths store, which closed on 3 January 2009, due to the company being in administration. On 10 December the former Woolworths store reopened as a Co-operative Food store, after plans to change the store into an Italian restaurant were rejected. The branch closed in 2016, being replaced with a McColls convenience store, which has also now closed.
The car park on the corner of the high street and Salters Road is the former site of a primary school.
Gosforth Shopping Centre is owned by Drum who purchased it in 2016 for £12.25 million. Its previous owner for more than a decade was Graham Wylie, co-founder of the Sage Group, which itself was headquartered just outside Gosforth in the North Park development, who had bought it for £9.25 million.