Benwell High Cross

A hamlet of two rows of houses either side of the main road (now Adelaide Terrace). The north row is labelled 'Farm House' and the south row 'Pitmens Houses' on the Bowes Estate Plan 1811. The latter are probably associated with Benwell Low Colliery (HER 16451). These were likely named for the market cross erected east of the village as noted in Mackenzie's A History of Northumberland, published in 1825.He further noted that "[the settlement] consists of one farmstead, and a row of houses tenanted by pitmen employed in the adjoining coalworks”.
Farrier notes that by the 1880s, the cottages were owned by Armstrong Whitworth and tenanted as workers' housing and that the 1881 Census records seven cottages which known by this point as Palmer’s Cottages. The properties are depicted on the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey and the Town Plans for Newcastle, which were surveyed in 1894. However, by the publication of the 3rd edition OS, they had been demolished when St James Parish Hall, Atkinson Terrace and the tops of Atkinson Road and Joan Street were built.