Church Walk, workhouse

HER Number

13323

District

Sunderland

Site Name

Church Walk, workhouse

Place

Sunderland

Map Sheet

NZ45NW

Class

Health and Welfare

Site Type: Broad

Workhouse

Site Type: Specific

Workhouse

General Period

POST MEDIEVAL

Specific Period

Hanoverian 1714 to 1837

Form of Evidence

Demolished Building

Description

Sunderland's first workhouse was built next to Holy Trinity Church in 1740. In 1796 breakfast consisted of hasty pudding (porridge). Dinner was pease soup and bread. Supper was water, gruel and bread. In 1797 there were 176 people in the workhouse, 36 of these were children. Sunderland parish spent £26 a week on food and provisions for the workhouse. Shown to the west of the church on Rain's Eye Plan of 1787.

Easting

440510

Northing

557160

Grid Reference

NZ440510557160

Sources

Nigel Green, 2009, Tough Times & Grisly Crimes, page 30; http://openplaques.org/plaques/40401; http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Sunderland/; Mr G. Garbutt, 1818, A List of the names of all those who receive Parish Relief; with the weekly sum allotted to each, and their place of abode. Also the names of the inmates of the workhouse; Tyne and Wear Archives, Creed registers (1888-1941), Indoor relief lists (1866-1947), Register of lunatics (1896-1948), Deaths (1866-1064); Sunderland People and Places by A Brett (1990); Sunderland: River, Town and People edited by GE Milburn & ST Miller (1988); The Poor Laws, with Special Reference to The Old Sunderland Workhouses by JJ Kitts (1909, in Antiquities of Sunderland, 10, 133-159)