Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. At the 2021 census, the population was 196,151.
Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.
The town's attractions include the twenty-metre-tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.
Toponymy Gateshead is first mentioned in Latin translation in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae ("at the goat's head"). This interpretation is consistent with the later English attestations of the name, among them Gatesheued (), literally "goat's head" but in the context of a place-name meaning 'headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats'. Although other derivations have been mooted, it is this that is given by the standard authorities.Bethany Fox, The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland, The Heroic Age, 10 (2007), (appendix at ).
A Brittonic predecessor, named with the element *gabro-, 'goat' (cf. Welsh gafr), may underlie the name. Gateshead might have been the Roman-British fort of Gabrosentum.
History Early There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times.
The first recorded mention of Gateshead is in the writings of the Venerable Bede who referred to an Abbot of Gateshead called Utta in 623. In 875, Vikings under Halfdan Ragnarsson sailed into the River Tyne and sacked monasteries at Tynemouth and Jarrow, before setting up camp at Gateshead. In 1068 William the Conqueror defeated the forces of Edgar the Ætheling and Malcolm king of Scotland (Shakespeare's Malcolm) on Gateshead Fell (now Low Fell and Sheriff Hill).
During medieval times Gateshead was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durham. At this time the area was largely forest with some agricultural land. The forest was the subject of Gateshead's first charter, granted in the 12th century by Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham. An alternative spelling may be "Gatishevede", as seen in a legal record, dated 1430.Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; CP 40 / 677; National Archives; ; last entry on the image, the home of William Philypson, a tanner.
Industrial revolution In 1747, the Team Works of the Hawks family opened in Gateshead with a few forges working up old iron brought in as ballast. In 1750, Russell was launched by Headlam's yard at Gateshead, the largest vessel built on the Tyne up to that time, able to carry 30 keels of coal.
Throughout the Industrial Revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town.
In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's medieval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.
Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead from 1869 to 1883, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.
In 1889 one of the largest employers (Hawks, Crawshay and Sons) closed down and unemployment has since been a burden. Up to the Second World War there were repeated newspaper reports of the unemployed sending deputations to the council to provide work. The depression years of the 1920s and 1930s created even more joblessness and the Team Valley Trading Estate was built in the mid-1930s to alleviate the situation.
Regeneration
In the late 2000s, Gateshead Council started to regenerate the town, with the long-term aim of making Gateshead a city. The most extensive transformation occurred in the Quayside, with almost all the structures there being constructed or refurbished in this time.
In the early 2010s regeneration refocused on the town centre. The £150 million Trinity Square development opened in May 2013: it incorporates student accommodation, a cinema, health centre and shops. It was nominated for the Carbuncle Cup in September 2014. The cup was however awarded to another development which involved Tesco, Woolwich Central.
Governance Former
In 1835 Gateshead was established as a municipal borough and in 1889 it was made a county borough, independent from Durham County Council.
In 1870 the Old Town Hall was built, designed by John Johnstone who also designed the previously built Newcastle Town Hall. The ornamental clock in front of the old town hall was presented to Gateshead in 1892 by the mayor, Walter de Lancey Willson, on the occasion of him being elected for a third time. He was also one of the founders of Walter Willson's, a chain of grocers in the North East and Cumbria. The old town hall also served as a magistrate's court and one of Gateshead's police stations.
Current
In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, the County Borough of Gateshead was merged with the urban districts of Felling, Whickham, Blaydon and Ryton and part of the rural district of Chester-le-Street to create the much larger Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.
Geography The town of Gateshead is in the North East of England in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear, and within the historic boundaries of County Durham. It is located on the southern bank of the River Tyne at a latitude of 54.57° N and a longitude of 1.35° W. Gateshead experiences a temperate climate which is considerably warmer than some other locations at similar latitudes as a result of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream (via the North Atlantic drift). It is located in the rain shadow of the North Pennines and is therefore in one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom.
One of the most distinguishing features of Gateshead is its topography. The land rises from Gateshead Quays to the town centre and continues rising to a height of at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sheriff Hill. This is in contrast to the flat and low lying Team Valley located on the western edges of town. The high elevations allow for impressive views over the Tyne valley into Newcastle and across Tyneside to Sunderland and the North Sea from lookouts in Windmill Hills and Windy Nook respectively.
The Office for National Statistics defines the town as an urban sub-division. The 2011 ONS urban sub-division of Gateshead contains the historical County Borough together with areas that the town has absorbed, including Dunston, Felling, Heworth, Pelaw and Bill Quay.These are the boundaries of the town of Gateshead (2011 methodology)
Given the proximity of Gateshead to Newcastle, just south of the River Tyne from the city centre, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as being a part of Newcastle. Gateshead Council and Newcastle City Council teamed up in 2000 to create a unified marketing brand name, NewcastleGateshead, to better promote the whole of the Tyneside conurbation.
Climate Climate in this area has small differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round to meet the criterion for Oceanic climate, at least 30 mm per month. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).
Green belt
The town is within the wider Tyne & Wear Green Belt, with its portion in much of its surrounding rural area of the borough. It is a part of the local development plan which is in conjunction with Newcastle city borough, and was created in the 1960s.
Its stated aims are to:
Prevent the merging of settlements, particularly: Gateshead with Hebburn, Washington, Birtley or Whickham …the main built-up area with nearby villages; and villages with each other, Safeguard the countryside from encroachment, Check unrestricted urban sprawl, and Assist in urban regeneration in the city-region by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
In the Gateshead borough boundary, as well as the aforementioned areas, it also surrounds the communities of Chopwell, Crawcrook, Greenside, High Spen, Kibblesworth, Lockhaugh, Rowlands Gill, Ryton, Sunniside, as well several small hamlets. Landscape features and facilities such as woods and nature reserves, local golf courses, Burdon Moor and Whinell Hill are also within the green belt area.
Districts The town of Gateshead consists of the following districts. Some of them were once separate settlements that were absorbed by encroaching urban sprawl, while others consist entirely of retail, industrial and housing estates. Many of these areas overlap each other and their boundaries are by no means official or fixed. Gateshead is a Town (Urban Subdivision) in the Tyneside urban area.
Gateshead town centre Bensham's ward Team Valley Team Valley Trading Estate Deckham's ward Mount Pleasant Carr Hill Old Fold Shipcote (overlaps into two wards) Bridges' ward Central Redheugh Chowdene's ward Harlow Green Dunston and Teams' ward Low Teams Swalwell Low Fell Whickham East's ward Dunston Hill High Fell's ward Black Hill Sheriff Hill Ravensworth Beacon Lough Egremont Estate Low Fell's ward Lyndhurst Allerdene Saltwell's ward Shipcote (overlaps into two wards) Wardley and Leam Lane's ward Follingsby Pelaw and Heworth's ward Bill Quay Felling North Felling/ Felling Shore (Formerly known as Tyne Main) Falla Park Sunderland Road Lamesley's ward Wrekenton Eighton Banks Windy Nook and Whitehills' ward Staneway Whitehills Estate
Demography
The table below compares the demographics of Gateshead with the wider Metropolitan borough. The town's population in 2011 was 120,046 compared with 78,403 in 2001. This is due to a slight population increase and boundary and methodology changes since 2001. Felling used to be a separate urban subdivision and had a population of around 35,000, but now it is considered part of Gateshead town. The population of the 2011 census boundaries in 2001 was 113,220, proving that there was some sort of population increase. +Gateshead Ethnicity 2011White BritishAsianBlackGateshead 92.0%2.5%0.8%Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead94.0%1.9%0.5%
+White BritishAsianBlackGateshead93.5%2.5%1.1%Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead93.5%2.5%1.1%
In 2011, 8.0% of the population of Gateshead Town were from an ethnic minority group (non-indigenous), compared with only 6.0% for the surrounding borough. Despite the borough's low ethnic minority population compared with the England average of 20.2%, it has slightly more ethnic minorities than other boroughs in Tyne and Wear, such as Sunderland or North Tyneside, and two wards near the town centre (Bridges and Saltwell) have minority populations very similar to the national average. The Tyneside metropolitan area, which contains the borough of Gateshead, has a population of 829,300; the NewcastleGateshead urban core area has population of 480,400. The Metropolitan borough of Gateshead had a population of 200,214 in 2011. Gateshead is the main major area in the metropolitan borough and the town takes up around 60% of the borough's population. Other major areas in the borough include Whickham, Birtley, Blaydon-on-Tyne and Ryton.
Economy Gateshead is home to the MetroCentre, the largest shopping mall in the UK until 2008; and the Team Valley Trading Estate, once the largest and still one of the larger purpose-built commercial estates in the UK.
Arts