William Row’s tripe shop was a late survivor of medieval Newcastle, standing on Fenkle Street at the end of Low Friar Street until well into the twentieth century. The Row family had been preparing tripe there for two decades when this photograph was taken in 1880, shortly before William made a gift of the business to his evidently hard-to-please son.
The shop was opened in the 1860s by John Burnett Row, originally a wood carver who decided to turn his hand to dressing tripe instead. The lining of cow’s stomachs was a popular dish in homes and in Newcastle’s restaurants and hotels, and “dressing” it for human consumption was a tricky and unpleasant job. The smell was also unpleasant for people living nearby, and in 1865 John was fined forty shillings for “carrying on his business in such a manner as to give annoyance to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood”.
William Row took over the family business on his father’s death in the 1870s, but his attention seems to have been focused on selling beer from his house on nearby Stowell Street, later diversifying into mineral water. His son, John Burnett Row II, was placed in charge of the tripe shop.
We can only speculate as to whether this was the reason that in November of 1887, John Burnett Row went around to his father’s house with a loaded revolver, determined to shoot him dead. William wasn’t at home but John Jnr loosed off a few shots into the walls and ceiling anyway, before going upstairs to sleep off the drink. William Row told the court that he was in permanent fear for his life, and John Burnett Row was bound over for six months.
Whatever the grudge was it was running deep, and in 1905 John paid his father another visit. William wasn’t at home again and his stepmother answered the door, who he promptly punched in the face. He was fined ten shillings and costs and bound over once more, the Chairman of the magistrates telling him he should not go and annoy his father, who was a very respectable old man.
In 1895 the business was sold to Elizabeth Simpson, and tripe dressers continued boiling animal’s guts and bothering their neighbourhood with the stench until the 1920s, when the building was demolished and replaced by the one standing there now.
There is one small part of the premises that is still with us today, if you look closely next time you pass. The gas lamp on the far right of these photographs was rescued and attached to the wall of building next door.