A new king and a popular Tyneside park
MANY of the North East’s fine public parks emerged amid the smoke and noise of Victorian industrialisation, on land sometimes bestowed by wealthy, land-owning philanthropists.
In Gateshead, Saltwell Park opened in 1876; in South Shields, the two Marine Parks were unveiled in 1890; in North Shields, Northumberland Park was opened to the public in 1885; and in Newcastle, the region’s very first public park swung open its gates to the public just days before the Christmas of 1873.
Our main picture shows the gates of Hebburn Park in South Tyneside.
Sadly, there is little information with the photograph.
On the tall arched gateposts, we see images of King George V and his wife Queen Mary.
Assuming the photograph was taken around the time of George’s coronation, we think it must date from June 1911.
The new king - who succeeded his father Edward VII - was crowned in the middle of one of the hottest summers of the 20th century when temperatures around the country regularly eased into the 30s.
Hebburn, still within County Durham at that time, was a typical hard-working Tyneside town with a colliery; a booming shipyard, Hawthorn Leslie; and a giant engineering factory, Reyrolle.
Those and other big local employers engaged in heavy industry are all gone.
Local folk have flocked to Hebburn Park since 1897. In 1920, the owner of the land - Ralph Carr Ellison - gifted it to the town after the safe return of his son from World War I.
A tall granite column, with a miniature cannon next to it, still stands in the park and was erected in memory of the town’s men who died in an earlier conflict - the Second Boer War of 1899-1902.
It was played out in South Africa between the British Empire and the Boers and was one of the dominant issues of the time for our greatgrandparents.
Hard-fought British victories at the likes of Ladysmith and Mafeking were celebrated joyously around the country, although the war has long-since slipped from living memory.
In our 2018 photograph, the scene in Hebburn’s leafy Canning Street is relatively unchanged, although the trees have matured and the park keeper’s house is currently unoccupied.