Bensham, Coatsworth Conservation Area

Designated on 3rd April 1987. The Conservation Area comprises ten nineteenth century terraces which represent several phases of growth. With imposing terraces, culs-de-sac and substantial gardens, Coastsworth displays a more spacious layout and more varied pattern than the monotonous gridiron development which grew up arround it. The Town Fields of Gateshead at Bensham were divided among the borough-holders in 1818 and sold off piecemeal for building. Claremont Place was built between 1819 and 1824. By the late 1850s Sedgewick Place, Woodbine Terrace and parts of Villa Place and Woodbine Place had been added, along with Woodbine Cottage (now Villa). This development was surrounded by fields and was quite separate from the town of Gateshead. It provided a rural retreat for the employing class. Union Lane (now Coatsworth Road) gave access from Bensham Road to the houses but petered out into a field track at the end of Sedgewick Place. The Shipcote Estate was developed from the 1860s onwards on a more regular grid of streets. The new Bewick Road which provided a direct route across the suburb, was built up with terraces and Christ Church. Oxford and Cambridge Terraces were built around 1890 to 1902, for the middle-classes. By 1900 a dense grid of small terraced houses and Tyneside flats spread across the rest of Bensham. A tramway was laid along Coatsworth Road, which had become a shopping street as a result of infill along its frontages and the conversion of end-terrace houses. Early in the C20 the Honeysuckle Hotel was rebuilt and a post office. A cinema was built in Bewick Road. In this century the general area has become predominantly working-class and increasingly deprived, with houses subdivided into flats for rent. However the larger houses around Bewick Road have remained as family houses. The Hasidic Jewish community has grown in the area. A terrace of large houses in Bewick Road has been converted for use by two Jewish colleges {1}.