Circa 1800, ashlar with Welsh slate roof, partly rebuilt end chimneys. Moulded
eaves cornice. Cill bands. Modern sash windows in original plain openings.
Modern door with bracketed cornice hood. Stone forecourt wall with square piers,
finials missing. LISTED GRADE 2

Early C19 with mid and late C19 alterations. Coursed stone with ashlar dressings.
Fairly low pitched Welsh slate roof, with three corniced stone chimney stacks.
Moulded eaves cornice and frieze; cill bands. Two storeys, six windows. Quoins
to angles and windows, two original sashes, the rest modern. Doric prostyle porch
in third bay, later canted and square bays to right. Later brick right extension
with stone dressings. Half-octagonal ended conservatory to left. On entrance
front, a two-bay entrance wing dated 1875. Some original windows on rear elevation.
Some good late C19 stained glass windows with floral panels and figures in Edward
Burne-Jones style; and some arts-and-crafts metalwork to doors {1}. Modest early C19 house, with additions c. 1856-74 and of 1875 by James Shotton for Robert Spence Watson, cousin of Birket Foster and host to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. Library with stained glass, tiles and fittings designed by Morris & Co. The earlier parts of the house features stained glass featuring daisies and a dragonfly. In the sitting room there is a stained glass image of Admiral Collingwood by Joseph Baguely. In the main bedroom there are depictions of the Northern Saints. In the late 1870s the house was turned back to front and the images of the musicians were added. There are wooden ceilings and stone fireplaces carved with poetic references. In the fireplaces are early tiles by Morris, Marshll and Faulkner. In the early 1800s Joshua Watson (1771-1853), a Quaker cheesemonger from Allendale, working in Newcastle, bought Bensham Grove. He married Esther in 1806 and had a son called Joseph in 1807. Joseph Watson (1807-1874) was an attorney, poet, writer of children's stories, a Quaker and a political reformer. He believed in the abolition of slavery and sheltered fugitive slaves at Bensham Grove. He married Sarah Spence in 1835. Their son Robert was born in 1837. By 1862 he had taken Robert into partnership. Sarah died in 1871 and Joseph in 1874.

Bensham Grove is chiefly notable as the home of Robert Spence Watson (1837-1911),
the most notable citizen of Gateshead. He was secretary of the Newcastle Literary
and Philosophical Society, co-founder of many educational institutions including
the Gateshead High School and the Newcastle College of Science (now the University
of Newcastle upon Tyne). He was, for more than two decades, secretary of the
Newcastle Liberal Association and, although he never stood for Parliament, was
appointed a Privy Councillor. He was perhaps best known for pioneer work in
arbitration of industrial disputes. He married Elizabeth Richardson in 1863. They had six children - Mabel, Ruth, Evelyn, Mary, Bertha and Arnold. Arnold died in 1897, Mabel in 1907, Robert in 1911, Ruth in 1914 and Elizabeth in 1919. After Elizabeth's death, the remaining family members set up an Educational Trust and the new Settlement Association used the house for adult education courses. The Trustees envisaged a 'common meeting ground for men and women to learn through class study, discussions, music and fruits of Fellowship'. The first warden was Miss Lettice Jowitt. Bensham Grove became the first Mother and Child Welfare Clinic in Gateshead and the first nursery school in the north-east. The Bensham Settlement was home to music and singing groups, an orchestra, drama group and arts and handicrafts exhibitions. In 1930 Clifford Webb founded the Bensham Settlement Art Group. This disbanded on the eve of the Second World War. In 2013 the Trustees of Bensham Grove were awarded funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the house.

Parish Church to new Parish formed out of St John's. 1876 by John Wardle. Built
at a cost of £13,000, the gift of Edward Joicey of Whinney House, Durham Road (qv).
Large, solid Early English style. Coursed, rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings.
Graduated lakeland slate roof. Cruciform with short apsidal chancel having cross-
gabled vestry, large transepts and south-west tower with stone broach spire; north-
west balancing porch. Stepped buttresses, lancets single and grouped, tower doorway
with mouldings and nook-shafts.

Interior of snecked stone with ashlar dressings. Arch braced timber roof on carved
corbels. Carved stone reredos, pulpit and font. Interesting glass:

1. Chancel, 5 lancets, style of Morris & Co. Miracles. Transfiguration,
Sermon on Mount.

2. N & S transepts, evangelists and prophets, possibly Kempe.

3. Nave, north side, Burne-Jones designs, saints.

One window in south transept signed G J Baguley, Newcastle, 1902. Brass plate to
Edward Joicey, the donor. LISTED GRADE 2*

Row of substantial earlier C19 houses. Ashlar with Welsh slate roofs. Stone gable
copings and kneelers, ashlar stacks with cornice bands. Each two storeys, three
bays. Plain reveals to sash windows (many now have modern glazing and two first
floor centre windows are blocked). Doors with oblong fanlights; No 5 has pilaster
and entablature surround. Somewhat altered and included partly for group interest. LISTED GRADE 2

Fountain at entrance to
former Gateshead Union
II Workhouse (now demolished)

2.
Late C19. Stone. On a stepped plinth a short, stout stem supports a large bowl
of ogee shape with cable moulded band, carved rim and relief foliage below. From
the centre rises a taller stem carved with palmette and lotus patterns and supporting
a smaller similar bowl. Inscription around base: "This fountain was designed,
sculptured and named by John Moore, an inmate of this institution". LISTED GRADE 2

House. Late C18. Coursed squared sandstone with quoins; pantiled roof with
one banded end brick chimney. 2 storeys, 2 bays. Partly-glazed door under
blocked fanlight and flat stone lintel at right bay. Altered window (1st
door) with projecting stone sills; small square window at left of right bay above LISTED GRADE 2

House, formerly house and post office. Early C19 incorporating mid-C18 house.
Coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings, plinth and qouins; roof Welsh
slate with stone gable copings; pantile with stone gable copings to one-storey
one-bay set-back right extension. 2 corniced end brick chimneys to main house,
one to extension. 2 storeys and one; 4 windows. Tuscan doorcase, up 2 steps,
to 6-panelled door, upper panels glazed. All windows sashes with glazing bars
and sill bands and eaves band. Sill band also to extension, which has window
in broader box. Right return to village green has one sash window, door and
octagonal window in gable peak. Interior: high quality stucco decoration to
stair ceiling; one early C18 door first floor rear. LISTED GRADE 2

House. Late C17/early C18. Rendered front, limestone and brick rear, brick
gables. Pantiled roof has 2 rows of stone slates at front. 2 storeys and
attic, 3 windows. Central half-glazed 4-panelled door in C20 porch. 3-light
horizontal sliding sash windows in plain reveals. 3 high dormers have 3-light
sliding sashes under cornices and moulded curved gables; ball and spike
finials. Shaped gables have coping of one row of headers. 2 rendered end
brick chimneys. Interior: closed-string stair has flat balusters, narrow grip
handrail. 2-panelled doors throughout, some renewed, the originals with narrow
central beaded section. Main bedroom has one high, corniced chimney-piece with
raised central section above lugged bolection-moulded surround with late C18
cast-iron grate inserted; 2 other chimney-pieces of similar quality. One
fielded panel to shutters of most windows. Moulded plastered beams to principal
room. LISTED GRADE 2

House. C17 and later. Rendered with sandstone quoins and dressings;
Welsh slate roof has flat stone gable copings. 2 storeys, 3 windows.
Central flattened Tudor arch to plank door in chamfered, moulded surround
under label mould; chamfered, stone-mullioned 2-light window above; 3-light
windows either side, all square-headed under label moulds. Roof has 2 massive
end brick stacks, with corniced, separate chimneys. Interior: square-panelled
ceiling, in main room, has moulded ribs with square bosses. Elliptical
fanlight with glazing bars over door to main room; some stop-chamfered beams. LISTED GRADE 2

Boxed shaped 1930s Telephone Exchange and former Barclays Bank. Representative of a style and period of commercial architecture of increasing rarity and interest. The ground floor of the bank has been altered. The boundary walls, doors and steel windows of the Telephone Exchange survive. The large 1960s extension to the rear is intrusive.