Gateshead East Cemetery, cemetery lodge

This attractive single-storey lodge in snecked stonework is part of the suite of buildings at Gateshead East Cemetery. It was built when the cemetery was extended in around 1895, at the new entrance to Sunderland Road, to designs sympathetic with the ‘house style’ established at the main cemetery buildings to the west. It picks up on the feature fishscale banding seen on the chapel buildings, upping the ante with diamond detail above. The mouldings to the window surrounds echo those to those on the Superintendent’s House (Fairhaven Lodge), only here they are shaped of solid lintels, cills and jambs, rather than individual stones. Although it is more modest in terms of size than the other lodge, it is certainly a quality build, and uses the older buildings as inspiration without replicating any of them. On plan it has a main range facing north, with a wing at right angles to the south. It retains 2 over 2 timber sashes with slim glazing bars and horns - in all likelihood original to the property – and a timber porch has been built onto the north side, with decorative bargeboards, rails and brackets, and a slate roof to harmonise with the main roof. Curiously it has a datestone that has never been inscribed. Altogether an endearing building, and perhaps the most visible of the cemetery buildings as it fronts a main road. MATERIALS Sandstone, slate, timber DATES c1895 The date of the extension has been gleaned from looking at the cemetery registers and noting when the numbered plots first appear. A plot plan of the cemetery (available at Cemeteries and Crematoria Reception) shows lettered plots and numbered plots, with the layout making it clear that the original plots were lettered, and those within the extension numbered. The original part was built on 3 fields visible on the 1st edition OS, with the later part built on the site of Claxton’s farm, at the same time as the Recreation Ground was created, and presumably the remaining land sold for the housing on Wordsworth Street and the St James and St Bede Church. A plan of the bandstand for the Recreation Ground was found dated 1894, which would also confirm this date. The architect and builder could in all likelihood be discovered through perusal of the Committee minutes for the time of the extension, which would be TWAS CB.GA/8/3. Also advertisements in the Gateshead Observer of the period may shed further light. LOCAL LIST