Bull-baiting, cholera and Humperdinck at Town Park
The transformation of Town Park is excellent news for Sunderland’s city centre. It’s still referred to as “the back of the leisure centre”, even though there hasn’t been a leisure centre in almost a decade. But most Wearsiders know exactly the location, if not its proper name.
Like all dynamic young buccaneers, I’m looking forward to sitting there in the unending Wearside sunshine with a flask of Earl Grey and an Echo, moaning ceaselessly about anyone who happens to be younger than me. We all are. But the
Town Park area and its immediate environs are historically fascinating.
A blue plaque tells us that the adjacent Bishopwearmouth
Village Green was a haven for “traditional leisure pursuits including climbing a greasy pole and bull-baiting, last recorded in 1788”.
A bull would be tethered before having pepper blown up his nose. Trained dogs then set about the bull, hence the name “bulldogs”. Delightful.
Another plaque tells of the 19th century cholera victims buried in the churchyard, dug up and re-interred in 1988 to make way for the ring road.
Sunderland Minster in its current form is relatively modern, with assorted building works completed in the 19th and 20th centuries. But there’s been a church there since around 930AD. Before that there was Roman occupation. Evidence suggests that a Roman road ran roughly where Low Low is today (where The Greens pub is). A Roman mosaic was reportedly uncovered below a bicycle shop - then covered with dolomite.
By 1920s the green was used for allotments. But during World War Two it was dug up and an underground air raid shelter built. Years later the site was yet again dug up and the shelter found. This led to persistent, apocryphal rumours that a nuclear bunker lay beneath. The story went that the bunker existed to preserve those most essential to post thermo-nuclear life - town councillors. We await the evidence.
Definitely there, where Debenham’s car park entrance is now, was Wetherell’s nightclub, where the likes of Englebert Humperdinck belted out their finest. Almshouses were first founded there in 1727 by Jane Gibson.
Bull-baiting, cholera victims, Englebert Humperdinck… Enjoy your flask of tea.