DESCRIPTION / STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
This smart building is of great significance in its evocation of the vast impact created by the construction of the Tyne Bridge. In warm brick with artificial stone string courses, simple cornice and contrasting pale pointing, its sinuous form follows the pattern Church Street, at the time newly redirected to accommodate the approach to the bridge. As it ascends the street, the height rises from 2 to 3 storeys finished with fluted panels, through a feature tower displaying a flagpole on a hexagonal plaque. It takes full advantage of the prominence of its location with a striking curved terminus echoing the tighter curve of the Central pub opposite. It was designed as a showroom space for Snowball’s, who had a large store at the bottom of the street, hence the shallow, extremely long, highly glazed frontage that would enable great visibility to traffic travelling south over the bridge. It was a very modern building in its time, with what must have been an impressive glazed single storey arcade running the length of the rear, entered by the 2 doorways to Church St. Upstairs there were fitting rooms so it is likely that the clothing was on this level. The whole is detailed with elegant simplicity, with some Deco hints, including leaded toplights to the ground floor (now painted over) and simple but refined metal casements above (with secondary glazing behind) in a harmonious design. The slim section timber shopfronts appear predominantly original (although there are some unfortunate alterations to several bays) and in the past have cheerfully displayed canopies on still extant brackets, which could be brought back into operation. A single storey felt-roofed lean-to nestles at the rear. Overall, the building illuminates the forward-looking atmosphere at the time of its construction, when much of the old centre of Gateshead was being demolished around it. It creates a fine punctuation mark to the end of the elegant and world-famous bridge, and therefore has a strong relationship with it, forming an important part of its context.
MATERIALS Brick, artificial stone, metal
ARCHITECT James W Corking (16 West Street, Gateshead)
DATES 1932
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The store later became Shephards. The canopies were made by Hardy & Stewart of Newcastle.

The grandest surviving house in Chowdene Conservation Area. A tall irregular house with steeply pitched roofs and prominent chimney stacks.
DESCRIPTION
Later 19th century tall house of Scottish-Tudor appearance. Coursed stone. High pitched slate roofs, irregular shape.

An early vernacular group in Chowdene Conservation Area. Ashlar-built. Boundary Cottage is the most 'polite' and is named on a carved stone plaque. Its name refers to the boundary of Gateshead parish, borough and fell (enclosed in 1822).
DESCRIPTION
Mid 19th century. Ashlar, rusticated quoins. Hipped Welsh slate roof. Modern windows.
ARCHITECT William Elliott
DATES 1859 (plans)

DESCRIPTION
Early 19th century. Coursed rubble, large quoins, heavy lintel. Welsh slate roof, sash windows with glazing bars.

The building has considerable interest as an example of large scale post-war industrial development, as it was originally the North Block of the Churchill Gears Factory. It was innovative at the time it was built because of the multi-barrel vault roof design, and it is this striking architectural feature that largely gives it its distinctive character. The other key feature is the large proportion of glazing in the curtain walling, set on a brick plinth with metal window frames. This block was built as an extension to the original factory site, and was used as an assembly shop where machinery could be constructed, tested and demonstrated. It was also pioneering in engineering terms, and in 1966 Charles Churchill Company Ltd. Was honoured in the Queen’s Award to Industry List for ‘technological innovation and export achievement’.
MATERIALS Metal, glass, felt
DATES 1965 (This block – South Block 1957)

Signal box on Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its Redheugh Branch.
DESCRIPTION Built by the North Eastern Railway Company at a branch in the Newcastle and Carlisle railway.

Unveiled 11th April 1924. A 21 feet high Cross of Sacrifice of Blomfield design with a bronze crusader's sword on the front of the cross. Octagonal plinth on a semi-circular platform. Maintained by the War Graves Commission. DESCRIPTION / STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
The memorial is described as an Imperial Great War Cross, and was erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It is dedicated to the soldiers and sailors buried in the cemeteries of Gateshead. The inscription reads: ‘TO THE HONOURED MEMORY OF/ ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE SAILORS AND/ SOLDIERS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR/ THEIR COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR 1914 - 1918/ OF WHOM ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT ARE/ BURIED IN EAST CEMETERY AND FIFTY THREE/ IN SALTWELL CEMETERY BOTH IN THE/ BOROUGH OF GATESHEAD./ THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.’ A 21’ Darley Dale stone cross, featuring a fine bronze sword and standing on an 8 sided plinth, it was unveiled by Lieutenant-Colonel A Henderson CMG, the ex-commanding officer of the 9th DLI, and dedicated by Canon H S Stephenson, Rector. Each war memorial is, of course, of significance in itself, in commemorating the people who died in the local area, and whose family may well still live nearby. Perhaps what distinguishes this memorial, however, is its starkness, making a poignant statement of the loss of life it commemorates, and its loftiness, which makes it a landmark structure and thus conveys its message to a wide audience.
MATERIALS Darley Dale stone, bronze
DATES Unveiling 11/04/1924

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
This attractive chapel in snecked stonework is part of the suite of buildings at Gateshead East Cemetery. Apparently designed by John Dobson, it features a distinctive steeply pitched slated roof with fishscale banding, creating an impression even from a distance. Dressings are in ashlar, including water tabling (with rolled tops), kneelers and quoins, with a small turret to the northern end ascending through a rather playful projecting feature loosely based on a buttress. To either side are feature windows, each with 2 lancet lights deeply inset, with quatrefoil lights to the apex under a hood moulding with small voussoirs to the pointed arch. This design detail is replicated in the east and west doorways to the northern end, whose doors feature simple curved bracket hinges, with more decorative hinges reserved for the main western doorway set in a deep mock-gable rising from a stepped access. The remaining lancets are slender and trefoil headed, with the leaded diamond pane windows apparently still present, although covered. A vestry was added to the chapel from the materials salvaged from the porch originally built on to St. Edmund’s Chapel as a receptacle for coffins. Now used for storage.
MATERIALS Sandstone, slate, timber
ARCHITECT John Dobson(?)
BUILDER Thomas Dickinson
DATES 1862 Vestry 1870
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
It is not absolutely certain that John Dobson designed the building, however, there is a reference in the committee minutes of 25th February 1861 to Dobson demanding payment for plans, surveys and preliminary arrangements for laying out the ground he had prepared. As there is no reference to anyone else preparing plans, apart from Mr Lamb for the ‘porch’ to be built onto St Edmund’s Chapel as a coffin receptacle, it would make sense that the all the original buildings, as well as the layout, were designed by Dobson. Unfortunately no plans survive. The contract for the building of the chapel was let at £100, and was reported complete by 13th May 1862. Thomas Dickinson, who built the chapel, also apparently undertook the contract for the boundary walls and palisading.
The research assistance of Caroline Harrop is gratefully acknowledged.

The church was formerly on the Gateshead local list, but was listed grade II in 2016 with the following description:
Church of St Joseph including attached presbytery and stone wall to S and SW
History
The Benedictine Mission was established in the area in the late C17, making this one of the oldest Catholic missions in County Durham. By the 1830s the existing church of c1791 was becoming too small to deal with the growing industrial population, and plans were being made for a new, larger church. In 1841 a plot of land was purchased for £400 and A W N Pugin was approached; although letters from Pugin confirm his intention to design a new church at Birtley, this was not realised and the commission ultimately went to John Dobson of Newcastle. John Dobson was a leading architect of his period and the most eminent in the North East of England. He produced c400 works across a range of building types and was a pioneer of the Gothic revival in the North-East. He established a substantial ecclesiastical practice, for all denominations, and in this context many of his designs were built to a limited budget in the growing urban and industrial areas of the North-East and as such had to be fairly plain and functional.
The original church designed by Dobson, comprising a single cell building with a sanctuary, was constructed in the early 1840s at a cost of £1,000 and opened on 18 August 1843. Dobson also designed an adjacent detached presbytery, and schools on a site across the main road. In 1862, a new chancel was added at a cost of £1,100; although the architect of this extension has not been established, it is considered to have possibly been Dunn and Hansom, who designed the new high altar installed at the same time. Probably at the same time, the existing presbytery was linked to the new chancel by a low range, and by the end of the C19 the presbytery had been extended to the north-east. In 1910 a N aisle and a Lady Chapel were added at a cost of £1,500; the architect is again uncertain, but J C Parsons is a possibility. The church continued to be enriched with new furnishings: in the 1880s the chancel ceiling was painted with the arms of major Benedictine foundations from designs supplied by Fr Norbert Sweeney; in 1892 in anticipation of a new organ, a replacement organ gallery was erected at the west end of the nave; in 1896 a new high altar was installed, in 1898 new oak benches were added to the nave, and in c1915 a new baptistery was created in the new north aisle with a font and stained glass window by the Bromsgrove Guild.
The high altar had been removed from the sanctuary in the mid-C20 but reordering in the 1970s and 1980s led to the re-siting of the 1906 Sacred Heart altar to the sanctuary. The organ was also divided into two in order to allow more light into the gallery, and its metal pipes were replaced with imitations. In the later 1980s the font was relocated to the Lady Chapel and the oak railings that formally surrounded it were discarded. Many of the stained glass windows including those of the 1840s, the oak panelling in the sanctuary, the communion rails, the pulpit and statues were also lost.
Details
Roman Catholic church, c1840 by John Dobson, extended in 1862 and again in 1910. Early English Gothic Revival design. Presbytery of same date, also by John Dobson but the north-east extension and its link are excluded from the listing. There is a stone wall with gate piers to the south and south-west.
MATERIALS: local sandstone ashlar and Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: a five-bay nave with a north aisle, a square-ended chancel with a north chapel and a sacristy to the south. There is a projecting south porch and a secondary porch on the north side. A presbytery to the east is linked to the chancel by a low range, and to the west there is a large graveyard. The church and presbytery are bounded to the south by a stone wall with entrances which continues around the south-west side of the graveyard.
EXTERIOR
CHURCH: situated in prominent location, set within a former graveyard overlooking the centre of Birtley. Windows are all pointed-arched Early English forms, roofs are pitched and there is a low plinth and continuous sill band to most elevations. The rectangular chancel has angle buttresses and is surmounted by a cross finial, and the large east window has five stepped lancet lights. Attached to the south side of the chancel there is a sacristy with paired lancets and a chimney, extended to the west by a small single-storey, flat-roofed bay. The nave has five bays and each gable is surmounted by a cross finial. On the south side the bays are demarcated by stepped buttresses, with a single lancet to each bay with hoodmoulds and enriched foliate stops; the easternmost bay (formerly the sanctuary) is lit by a pair of lancets with foliate and head stops, and there are similar stone heads adorning the buttress top to the end of the nave. The main entrance at the west end of the nave has a gabled porch detailed with triangular water tables with roll moulded tops; the moulded, pointed arched entrance has engaged columns and a hoodmould with circular stops engraved with crosses. The north aisle displays a variety of window styles, all Early English in character: a single lancet, two-light plate tracery windows and stepped triple lancet lights, all with hoodmoulds and plain, square stops. A secondary entrance within a gabled porch is in the westernmost bay. The projecting north chapel has single or paired lancets and a coped gable. The gabled west end forms the principal elevation facing the town and is surmounted by a prominent octagonal mock belfry with arcading, now blocked with stone, and a conical stone roof. The west window is of five stepped lancets, alternately blind and glazed.
PRESBYTERY: facing south attached to the south-east corner of the chancel by a low linking block. It has two storeys and three bays under steep pitched roofs of slate with tall stone chimney stacks, a plinth and prominent water tables. The central entrance bay has a six-panel door with paired over lights and flanking margin lights, all with stained and leaded glass depicting crosses, beneath a stepped hoodmould with bar stops. The first floor has a gabled half dormer stone cross window. The right bay is a gabled cross wing with a six-light mullion and transom window to the ground floor and stained glass depicting shields/coats of arms to the lower parts and a stone cross window above, both with hood moulds and bar stops, and a stone finial to the apex. The right return is largely blind. The left bay is single-storey with a six-light mullion and transom window to its gabled west elevation and a cross finial to the apex. The later north-east extension to the presbytery is a two bay, two storey block with a pitched roof, linked to the original building by a two-storey linking block, both of very plain character and are not listed.
INTERIOR
CHURCH: the walls throughout are plainly painted plaster with exposed ashlar stonework to the windows and arcade. The chancel has a timber boarded wagon roof painted with the arms of major Benedictine houses, medieval and modern. A five-light stained glass east window depicting the Crucifixion is set high up to accommodate the high altar (removed). There is a stone piscina to the sanctuary and a forward altar installed in 1906 of white marble and alabaster with a depiction of the Sacred Heart. The chancel arch is carried on enriched carved stone consoles bearing representations of St Benedict and St Scholastica. The north chapel contains an octagonal font of 1915 carved in fine limestone with low relief panels of sacred emblems on each of its sides. Two wall-mounted carved wooden panels of the Annunciation and the Nativity, removed from the discarded high altar of 1896, are affixed to the north wall. There is also a three-light Sacred Heart stained glass window by Hardman given in 1906, a lancet with St Edward the Confessor given in 1930 and two windows of Art Nouveau character; war memorial tablets are also affixed to the east wall. The nave is separated from the north aisle by a wide arcade of plain chamfered arches without capitals, and above is a timber open hammer-beam roof supported on carved stone consoles, set higher on the north side to accommodate the aisle arcade. The body of the nave is filled with oak benches of 1898, with boarded backs and linen fold end panels and more ornate bench fronts with Gothic arcading. The windows of the nave and north aisle retain original stained glass roundels depicting Benedictine saints set into what are now clear diamond quarries; the nave windows have plaster hoodmoulds and head stops. The north aisle has a flat, boarded ceiling and simple open-backed benches; the westernmost bay contains a stained glass window of the Baptism of our Lord by Archibald John Davies given in 1915 and double doors give access to the secondary entrance. The west gallery, reached by an ornate, metal spiral staircase, retains the central part of a Gothic arcaded timber front, flanked by the divided organ. The space below the gallery is partially enclosed below to provide a WC and stores. The south porch has a shoulder-arched entrance fitted with a simple boarded door, an encaustic tiled floor, wainscoting and a stone Holy Water stoup.
PRESBYTERY: this retains its original plan and has mostly six-panel doors throughout. It has a rectangular plaster stair arch and a dog-leg staircase; the latter has an ornate beaded newel post and ramped handrail, with a timber, pierced pointed-arched balustrade also with quatrefoils and circles. Double doors leading from the entrance vestibule have stained glass to the windows with the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. Original fireplaces have been removed and replaced with C20 examples.
SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: south of the church and presbytery there is a stone wall with double-chamfered stone copings. An entrance to the church is flanked by tall stone pillars surmounted by gabled caps with inset trefoils and trefoil roll moulding to the ridge and an entrance to the presbytery is flanked by tall narrow pillars with gableted caps. The wall extends west and steps around the churchyard and here it has simple triangular coping stones. A churchyard entrance has square squat pillars with shallow pyramidal caps. All of these features contribute to the special interest of the church and are included in the listing.

The design of the building is defensive and forbidding – giving a fortress-like military impression reminiscent of the ominous political climate of the time when it was built. As such it is very distinctive and makes an important contribution to the varied patchwork of architecture and spaces that together create the special character of the Birtley Conservation Area.
The building is a 2 storey masonic hall with Art Deco influences. It is constructed in red brick with artstone detailing. The roof is slated and there are several brick chimneys with chamfered bases and cornice detail to the tops. The windows have been replaced with plastic ones – largely retaining their regularity to the front elevation, but with rather haphazard fenestration to the sides. To the principal (eastern) elevation is a grand, keep-like single-storey entrance with strong castellation and protruding door surround with a date plaque above. This is echoed to the 1st floor of the main building behind in a geometric stepped plaque directly above. There is quite a brutal addition to the northern end. An attractive stone boundary wall remains, which has historic significance. Dates 1936