Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Disused mine shaft, one of many in the area visible as circular crop marks on aerial photographs. Dating is uncertain, but coal mining is known to have been carried out in the area from at least the early 17th century and is very likely to have been practiced earlier. Small workings of this sort may have been exploited up to the late 19th century.

Post-enclosure farmstead. Originally known as Cleadon Cottage in the early 19th century. By 1839 it was owned by Robert Walter Swinburne a South Shields glass manufacturer. The 1839 tithe plan shows it prinicipally as a west wing with an attached north service wing and adjacent L shaped block. In 1845 alterations and additions were carried out by John Dobson for R W Swinburne, glass manufacturer, with the addition of a south wing and the entrance and its approach moved to the north. Local dressed magnesian lime-stone with plinth, quoins, frieze, cornice and parapet and fairly low pitched hipped Welsh slate roof with corniced stone chimneys.
Two storeys, 2 north bays by 6 west bays by 8 south bays. The 2 end bays on the south front have an attic storey above the parapet with hipped roof. Stone eared architraves and cills to windows, some on first floor altered to form emergency doors. The pedimented entrance porch has a projecting Edwardian doorway added. To the east of the entrance a 2 storey, 5 bay service wing, rendered. Elliptical headed arched passage in east end bay. Hipped slate roof. Plain architraves to windows. Inside an imposing staircase and entrance hall with decorative plasterwork.
Edwardian in manner. Later James Kirkley carried out major works including a vast palm house. Sunderland Corporation bought it in 1918 and from 1921 to 1978 it was used as a hospital.
"It is not beautiful, it is not even distinguished. It is not elegantly detailed nor of fine proportions. It is neither an exciting building nor impressive. It lacks elegance, comfort and charm" said architect Peter Elphick at the enquiry into the demolition of Cleadon Cottage. His words helped to seal the fate of the house, which was demolished in 1982.

This was the seat of Robert Wallis, who opened the first shipyard in South Shields in about 1720. After his death, his second son John built or rebuilt Simonside Hall in 1784. It had fine views of Jarrow Slake. The battlemented front parapet and rear tower must have been C19 additions, perhaps by Henry Major. South Shields A.F.C took a lease on the estate in 1947. One wing had already disappeared when the main block was demolished in about 1973.

Westoe House stood at the head of the village and was first recorded in 1753. At the time it was owned by Robert Walker, shipping butcher from Newcastle who had made his fortune in the Greenland fisheries boom. A C17 house was incorporated into the north-eastern corner. Robert Ingham, the first MP for South Shields, inherited it in 1825. Before his death in 1875 most of the estate had been sold and the house altered by its late C19 owner, Matthew Cay, shipowner. The last private owner died in 1943 and the Ingham Infirmary bought it but never used it. In 1958 it was demolished. Grid ref is that of Westoe Villa - is this the same house?