Wittgenstein-upon-Tyne* (NZ251656, NZ245650 & NZ225645)

Ludwig Wittgenstein is universally regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. Years ahead of his time, he worked primarily in the fields of the philosophy of the mind, mathematics and language. Born into one of the richest families in Europe in 1889, he began life in Vienna, moved around a fair bit, and died in Cambridge in 1951.

Wittgenstein was an odd sort. He gave away his inheritance when in his twenties and suffered the suicide of all three of his brothers at an early age. For the most part he made his own way in life – eventually finding himself studying under Bertrand Russell at Cambridge a little before WWI. During the war he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and thereafter lived for several years in Austria.

He returned to Cambridge in 1929, where he spent most of the next decade or so, and, bizarrely, served as a semi-anonymous porter in Guy’s Hospital, London, during WWII. It was whilst working there that he fell in with Doctors Reeve and Grant who were interested in philosophy and the effect of shock on air-raid casualities. When, in November 1942, the two doctors moved their studies to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, Wittgenstein was offered a job as their lab assistant at £4 per week – a post he eventually took up in April 1943. He became a lodger at Mrs Moffat’s house at 28 Brandling Park, Jesmond, where Reeve and Grant also lived. After several months living here it seems that the landlady’s ill-health forced a move, with Wittgenstein transferring to Conyers House in Western Avenue, Benwell, where he lived alone.

By all accounts, Wittgenstein didn’t really fit in very well with his friends and colleagues. He was often chatty at the wrong times and unsociable at others – though he did like watching films, especially westerns. He was mechanically minded and proved to be a good technician in his lab at the RVI – though he only worked there for ten months until February 1944. He did no philosophical work of note during this period, though he did gatecrash a philosophical lecture being given by Dorothy Emmett in Newcastle in his typically difficult fashion!

Upon leaving the North-East he soon found himself back in Cambridge where he picked up his philosophical work. Plaques have recently been erected at both 28 Brandling Park and the RVI to commemorate the great man’s brief stay in the city.

Note: Incidentally, Wittgenstein visited Tyneside briefly in 1932 at the behest of his friend Maurice Drury, during which time he called in at Newcastle and Jarrow.

* My clever title has been stolen from the excellent article by Bill Schardt. More information can also be found here. Images of plaques here and here.

The Heworth Hoax (NZ289617)

During a spot of routine gravedigging in Heworth churchyard in late 1812 a group of unsuspecting workmen found a little clay pot filled with 20-odd ancient looking coins. They dutifully handed them to their boss, the Reverend John Hodgson, who also happened to be Northumberland’s famous historian and antiquarian.

Hodgson was well pleased, and the following year saw fit to go public with the discovery by way of his colleagues at the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The coins were cleaned – several being discarded due to their advanced state of decay – and, after much headscratching by the experts of the day, Hodgson declared them to be stycas from the reign of King Ecgfrith, who ruled Northumbria during 670-685AD. This was a rare find indeed.

Ecgfrith was a significant ruler of ancient Northumbria, being responsible for the founding of the famous St.Paul’s monastery in Jarrow (as well as St.Peter’s, Wearmouth). Historian Hodgson was intrigued with this possible link between Heworth and neighbouring Jarrow, and set about developing a theory for the ancient origins of the former being entwined with the well-known roots of the latter. When he concluded the construction of his new chapel at Heworth in 1822 he even placed a dedication stone above the south door claiming that his little religious site was originally founded in the reign of Ecgfrith.

Other historians had their doubts both at the time and in the years and decades that followed. Turns out, in fact, that the little pot and its curious contents were a hoax, conducted by perpetrators unknown – possibly to fool poor old Hodgson. The scam came to light as late as the 1980s when, with the church’s 1,300^th anniversary approaching, the relics were subjected to scientific analysis. The pot, it was said, was medieval at best (and probably much younger) - and as for the coins, well, they were fashioned from Georgian copper.

No evidence has ever been found which may point to the identity of the hoaxer. All that can be said is that it was a very clever ruse and must have taken an expert hand to execute.

More discussion and analysis of this extraordinary story can be found here (and click on ‘Church Tales’).

The Codex Amiatinus (NZ402578… possibly!)

  

One of the world’s greatest historical treasures, the Codex Amiatinus is the oldest surviving one-volume Latin Bible in the world. One of three Anglo-Saxon Bibles produced by the twin monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, it is the only survivor, and dates from the early 8th century. It is likely that the Venerable Bede himself was involved in its compilation.

Now in the Laurentian Library in Florence, it is considered one of the globe’s greatest artistic artefacts. It is a huge tome, with over 2060 vellum pages, made from 515 animal hides and weighing in at an incredible 75lb. Written by several scribes, the original three-Bible project was a mammoth task – most other monasteries were, at the time, reproducing just the four Gospels or the Book of Psalms. The surviving copy was intended as a gift for Pope Gregory II from the then head of the Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery, Bishop Ceolfrith. However, on his way to Rome to deliver the goods, Ceolfrith died in France in AD716 – though his followers completed the task in his honour.

Much of the book’s history thereafter is unknown, though it eventually surfaced at a monastery at Monte Amiata in Italy. Highly prized, it was for many years thought to be a 6th century Italian work; its true origins only being discovered after close scrutiny following its move to Florence after the monastery closed. By this time it had been given the name ‘Amiatinus’ after the religious house where it had spent so much of its time.

The Codex Amiatinus is perhaps the North-East’s greatest ever creation, and something of which we should all be very proud. But was it produced in Wearmouth or Jarrow, or both? Truth is, I don’t think anyone will ever really know for sure. Oh dear, another Tyneside/Wearside dispute.

See here for a much fuller (and very entertaining) history of the manuscript.

(Monk)Wearmouth Church (NZ402578)

 

 

[text from The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore & Legend, November 1891 - author J.R.Boyle FSA]

 

 

The tower and the west wall of St.Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, are now the only portions remaining of the monastic establishment founded at this place in the year 674 by Benedict Biscop, and immediately endowed with great liberality by King Ecgfrith. Before the sister house at Jarrow was founded, seven years later, Monkwearmouth was the home of Bede, who has left a valuable record of the early history of the twin monasteries in his ‘Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow.’

The early churches founded in the North were chiefly built of timber, ‘after the manner of the Scots’; but Biscop built his churches of stone, ‘after the manner of the Romans.’ And it is interesting to find that the same great founder of churches also brought makers of glass from France, who not only, as Bede tells us, glazed the windows of Benedict’s churches, but taught their art, which till that time had been unknown in Britain, to the natives.

The sight of a structure which has withstood the storms and changes of more than twelve centuries is always impressive; but especially is this the case when, as at Monkwearmouth, that structure is linked with an event of absorbing interest in the early history of our country. Biscop and Bede were great men. The former was a great builder, a man of large and liberal views, and a generous patron of literature and the arts. The latter was the great scholar of his age. Jarrow and Wearmouth were the principal seats of learning, not in the North alone, not in Britain alone, but in the whole of Western Europe. The perishing sculptures which adorn the sides of the entrance of this ancient tower may seem rude to us, but no one can fail to see in the baluster shafts which are built into the same doorway, and which also occur in the little windows high up in the west wall of the nave, evidence of genuine and refined art. And it must not be forgotten that the famous Codex Amiatinus, the most valuable MS now in existence of the ancient Latin version of the Bible, with its beautiful calligraphy and its gorgeous illuminations, was certainly written either at Jarrow or at Monkwearmouth.

We have only space to add that the lower portion of the tower is of much earlier date than the upper part. This lower part was originally not a tower, but a porch, the ‘porticus ingressus’ as it is called by Bede. The gable line of its original roof may be seen rising to a point between the second and third string courses.

 

 

 

Catherine Cookson, 1906-1998 (NZ355653)

[The following article originally appeared as an obituary in the now defunct North-Easterner Magazine in 1998]

An Obituary of Dame Catherine Cookson

Loved and respected by thousands of admirers the world over, Dame Catherine Cookson, author extraordinaire, died peacefully in her sleep on 11th June 1998 – a few days short of her 92nd birthday. She was arguably the greatest and perhaps the most famous living North-Easterner until her recent passing, selling more than 100 million copies of her 100 or so novels worldwide in 18 different languages. Though she didn’t begin writing until she was 44 years of age, for the last decade of her life she headed the list of the most-borrowed library books in the UK. She was awarded an OBE in 1985, and became a Dame in 1993.

Catherine was born on 27th June 1906, at 5 Leam Lane, Tyne Dock, on the south bank of the Tyne, the illegitimate daughter of a tragic, broken alcoholic, Kate McMullen. For the first seven years of her life she was led to believe that Kate was actually her elder sister, and was brought up by her grandmother Rose McMullen and ‘step-grandfather’ John McMullen – whom she believed to be her real parents. Her biological father was one Alexander Davies (her birth was actually registered under the name of Davies), a well-to-do regular at the pub where Kate worked. However, Alexander had left the scene by the time of her birth - never to be seen again.

Catherine endured a childhood of abject poverty – very much the norm amidst the docklands of Tyneside. Shortly after learning the truth about her parentage, she was molested by an Irish lodger who lived next door – at the time her mother’s boyfriend. Furthermore, she suffered regular beatings at the hands of the uncaring Kate, and endured a life of general drudgery. The family soon moved onto Jarrow in 1912, a house which was permanently filled with lodgers thus putting yet further strain upon the young Catherine. Five years later, in 1917, her grandmother, Rose, died – and Catherine herself, in fact, almost died soon afterwards as the wear and tear on her young body took its toll. But, pulling through, she determined to make good, and pushed herself through a series of self-improvement projects in her teens, despite her low social standing.

Shunned by her boyfriend on her 21st birthday she decided to break her ties with the North and fled south – firstly to Essex, and then to Hastings where she found a fairly well-paid job as a workhouse laundry manageress. She scrimped and saved her money, only to learn that, to her horror, her mother, Kate, had decided to move south to live nearby. Catherine, however, was eventually able to take out a mortgage on a large house in 1933, and took in guests – keeping her mother at arm’s length in her old house in the centre of Hastings. One of Catherine’s lodgers, Tom Cookson, was to eventually become her husband – tying the knot, as they did, on 1st June 1940. Her mother returned in disgust to Tyneside.

Suffering three miscarriages and a nervous breakdown, Catherine’s problems continued, however. She even spent some time in a psychiatric hospital near Hereford during the war, eventually returning to her Hastings home where she spent many a lonely night without husband Tom who was away on RAF duty. Suffering a fourth miscarriage, she eventually found solace in writing. Struggling for themes and a style, she began to make use of her own life experiences which finally found form in her first published novel, Kate Hannigan, in 1950. It earned her £100 – a huge amount of money in those days; but, more importantly, was to launch her on a career which was to bring her worldwide fame, and a fortune beyond her wildest dreams.

The publication of Kate Hannigan was only the first step on the long road to fame for Catherine Cookson – who was, by then, already 44 years of age. Her life until then had been a one of perpetual heartache, it had seemed; and even throughout the early years of her new career her health remained a constant problem. She suffered a hereditary blood disorder all her life, and was in constant need of medical attention – and regular blood transfusions. Against the odds, though, she lived on, and on, and continued to write, and write. The money began to pour in as the years rolled by; and when authors began to be paid a fee each time their books were borrowed from libraries it was the making of her – though she donated her first year’s income from this scheme to less fortunate writers than herself. Indeed she was to donate millions of pounds to all sorts of charities and causes over the years.

In 1961, writer’s cramp forced Catherine to start dictating her work. In 1968, she won the Winifred Holtby Prize for the Best Regional Novel for The Round Tower; and the following year one of her best-loved novels, Our Kate, was published. She was made a Freeman of South Shields in 1973, and was granted the Freedom of the Borough in 1974. In 1975, she and husband, Tom, decided to establish a base in the North-East and bought a house in Jesmond – but made the move north permanent in 1976 by buying a house in Morpeth. They later bought houses in Corbridge and Langley, Northumberland. Catherine was elected Variety Club Woman of the Year in 1982 (an honour later gained on two further occasions), and was named as Britain’s top creative writer by Woman’s Own magazine the same year. In 1983, she was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by Newcastle University.

She achieved true national acclaim in 1985 when she was awarded an OBE. It was at about this time, too, that many of her novels started being dramatised for TV in a big way – The Fifteen Streets being perhaps the most famous, appearing on our screens in 1989 – and winning the Best Network Programme on TV Award. But in 1990 Catherine suffered two heart attacks – though she recovered, and enjoyed another honour in the shape of an honorary doctorate from Sunderland Polytechnic in 1991. The very same year she and Tom moved into a bungalow in Jesmond.

On January 1st 1993, Catherine was made a Dame in the New Year’s Honours list – the ultimate accolade. By then she was a novelist of international repute. And in her native North-East there were permanent tributes to be enjoyed by all in the shape of, most notably, the ‘Catherine Cookson Country’ tourist trail (which effectively doubled the number of tourists to South Tyneside, Catherine’s ‘home patch’ of her childhood) and the permanent ‘Catherine Cookson Display’ at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery. Both attractions still bring in thousands upon thousands of Cookson fans to the region every year.

But perhaps Dame Catherine Cookson’s greatest legacy is her immense charity donations. £1million to Newcastle University for research into blood disorders; £100,000 to Jarrow’s ‘Bede’s World’; £224,000 to help Durham Cathedral display its ‘Treasures of St.Cuthbert’; £187,000 to safeguard the future of Newcastle's Hatton Gallery; Children’s Literacy in Newcastle received £163,000; South Shields Volunteer Life Brigade were handed £163,000, too - as was the Library Campaign; and she celebrated her 80th birthday in 1986 by donating £160,000 to various causes. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, Dame Catherine Cookson was, indeed, one of the world’s best-loved story-tellers. But she was much more than that. When she died peacefully of heart failure in her sleep on 11th June 1998, the people of the North-East had lost a living legend whose generosity knew no bounds. Her husband of almost 60 years, Tom, followed her to the grave less than three weeks later, on 29th June 1998, aged 86.

Tyne Dock (NZ353655)

Between (the now filled in) Jarrow Slake and the western edge of South Shields sits a very distinct corner of Tyneside known as Tyne Dock. Named after the large dock which eats into the river’s southern bank, it is as easily identifiable on maps as almost any other geographical feature in the region. Which makes it a bit of shame that it has now almost gone, and is unlikely to feature in blue on the next edition of the OS map.

Incredibly, the Tyne Dock basin was dug out by hand in the 1850s – much of it by veterans returning from the Crimean War. As part of the general industrial surge of the day, it was deemed necessary to create births for the growing river traffic – and the new ‘marina’ could take, it was said, some 500 vessels. Opened in 1859, Robert Stephenson made the dock gates and William Armstrong made the engines to power them – and they were still in use until about 20 years ago. But it was the drive of Jarrow shipbuilder Charles Palmer which saw the dock’s construction brought to a conclusion. Keen to compete with the railways in the transportation of coal, the great yard was Palmer’s response – built to take mighty new colliers such as the John Bowes.

A proud community grew up around the dock, of course – much of it made famous by the novels of Catherine Cookson, who was born at 5 Leam Lane, Tyne Dock in 1906, just as the yard was approaching is peak. With the decline of the industry and the growth in the sheer size of visiting ships, the dock’s usefulness began to fall off.

Inevitably, the developers’ eyes began to turn to the possibility of reclaiming the watery 50 acre site. In the 1980s, much of the southern area of the dock was in-filled, reducing its size by a good two-thirds. Then, in November 2009, a decision was made to complete the process by using material dredged and dug from the river during the excavation of the second Tyne Tunnel. This process has now been completed, and only a small sliver of the old Tyne Dock remains – to be filled with spoil as and when it becomes available.

Then the area will be ready for new commercial development. That’s progress for you.

There’s a neat little piece here about Tyne Dock and its community.

King Ecgfrith’s Port (NZ345655)

Jarrow Slake, that oddly-named area of reclaimed land on the south bank of the Tyne neighbouring St.Paul’s Church, has a recorded history going back to the time of Bede. The area was then a large expanse of mud-flats into which the River Don wound before emptying itself into the Tyne – but at high tide would fill with water, hence its original name of ‘King Ecgfrith’s Port’, named after the Dark Age Northumbrian king who gifted the land to the monks of Jarrow.

In time, a new name came into use: Jarrow’s Lake – which in turn became corrupted into Jarrow Slake. Little more than a treacherous expanse of gooey mess – as well as an unofficial bird sanctuary – for centuries, it was eventually put to good use in Victorian times as a pond for timber seasoning, for which it served its purpose for around a century from the 1870s. The Slake was also home to an isolation hospital for several years from around 1930, to which access was gained via a catwalk.

In 1972, reclamation work began, and the area was used as a landfill site for some time. Eventually amalgamated into the surrounding landscape, the Slake’s 120-acre muddy expanse finally disappeared for good in the early 1980s. Latterly it has been used as a car distribution terminal for Nissan.

For some fabulous photos of the old Slake, see here. And the area, on a map, as it is now – still, pleasing, called Jarrow Slake!

P.S. The illustrated gibbeting is probably that of William Jobling in 1832 (but that’s another story, see here). Though there is no sign of the cage, the artist may have omitted it in error.

 

The Oldest Stained Glass Window in the World (NZ338652)

 

Well, sort of. It is certainly the oldest stained glass that is known to still form part of a window – but we’ve cheated a bit, because this rather random mosaic was thrown together by craftsmen thirty-odd years ago using pieces of ancient glass turned up in a dig in the 1970s.

Professor Rosemary Cramp had been poking around archaeological sites in both Jarrow and nearby Monkwearmouth for more than a decade before she fell upon the above specimens in a particularly significant find at the former site during 1973-74. A decision was soon made to put them on display in the surviving Anglo-Saxon chancel at St.Pauls, the 7-inch diameter window ever since being claimed as the world’s oldest of its type.

The thing is, similar fragments found at Monkwearmouth are probably older, based on the theory that the Wearside monastry pre-dated that at Jarrow by about a decade (670s as opposed to 680s). Though it is not possible to accurately date glass, the Venerable Bede’s writings confirm that such glass was being fitted in the North-East monastries from around 675 – which means that Monkwearmouth must have had it first, followed by Jarrow when it was itself constructed a little later.

So, there you have it: yet more Tyne-Wear rivalry, this time with the Wearsiders coming out, we think, on top. But until they get their bits and pieces into a functioning piece of kit, the Tyne will still have the oldest stained glass window in the world. Well, as I say, sort of.

More reading here and here.

P.S. Fragments of glass from the Monkwearmouth site can be found on display at several locations throughout Sunderland, namely, St.Peter’s Church, Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens and (from April 2011) The National Glass Centre. Bede’s World Museum, Jarrow, contains fragments from its own site, in addition to that on display in situ in the old church itself.

St.Bede’s Well, Hebburn (NZ321641)

A nondescript hole in the ground in a corner of a patch of landscaped ground in Hebburn is the spot in question. Presumably an old natural spring of sorts, it used to sit little more than a yard from the old Bede Burn which meandered this way - a waterway which now lies buried under (or perhaps diverted around) the modern paved area which frames the well itself.

Legend has it that the famous Bede drew water from the well as a boy, and later sent monks there to fetch water when he was a priest at nearby St.Paul’s Monastery. All very fanciful, though there has been some recent speculation that the ‘bede’ in question derives from the Anglo-Saxon word baed, meaning a bathing place. Local historian Brand stated that in the 1740s it had long been a custom to bring sick and disabled children to the spot to be dipped in the healing waters, after which a crooked pin would be dropped into the little pool. Midsummer’s Eve would also bring the locals to the site in large number for various festivities, including bonfires, music, dancing and sports.

Until the urban spread of the late Victorian era, the well and its immediate environs were something of a beauty spot. The incursions of industry and the like changed the area beyond recognition as the Edwardian era blew in, and the site underwent many changes during the twentieth century – but has somehow managed to hang on to its place on the modern OS map as a site of antiquarian interest in the area now known as Campbell Park.

For an excellent picture history of the site, see here.

The Tyne Tunnels (NZ330660)

The Tyne Tunnels are a series of three byways (pedestrian, cycle and vehicular) which pass under the River Tyne between Jarrow on the south bank and Howdon on the north. The road tunnel forms a section of the main arterial A19 trunk road.

They were constructed during 1947-67 as a result of the passing of the Tyne Tunnel Act – though the scheme had been proposed a decade previously by the Durham and Northumberland county councils. Post-war frugality delayed the vehicular underpass, but the pedestrian and cycle tunnels were completed and opened by 1951 – both stretching some 900ft and lying around 40ft below the river bed. The huge wooden escalators at either end are record-breaking constructions in their own right, but will soon be superseded by more modern affairs.

The much larger and longer (5,500ft) road tunnel was eventually completed in 1967, and was ‘opened’ by The Queen on 19th October of that year (though it was not opened to traffic until 1968). It has always been a toll tunnel – originally 2s 6d for cars (now £1.20).

A second vehicular tunnel was completed in February 2011, and, as I write, the old tunnel is undergoing a period of closure for renovation. The new ‘double-tunnel’ will then be re-opened fully in December 2011, by which time the revamp of the pedestrian-cycle tunnel will be well underway. By the end of 2012 all of the tunnels should be fully functional and modernised – though the wooden escalators will be preserved for posterity. After all, the tunnels are Grade II listed.