These bairns are pictured here playing by the kerbside on Westmorland Road, while another one sleeps in what appears to be a small wheelbarrow. The older photo isn’t dated but there are clues that suggest it’s around 1914, the other photo was taken in 2024 for comparison.
The bairns are sitting near the junction with Elswick East Terrace, where they may have lived. Crossing Westmorland Road, it ran down from Elswick Road down to Scotswood Road and was a poor neighbourhood with small, overcrowded houses; some shared by multiple families. It would have been a tough place to live, and kids would want to be outdoors as often as possible.
Much of Elswick East Terrace was demolished in the slum clearances a couple of decades later, but there’s a gem of a building in the photo which is still with us. The Villa Victoria was built in 1893 to designs by Benjamin Simpson, who was also the architect of the gorgeous Emerson Chambers on Blackett Street. The building to the left of it in the photo is under construction and gives us a clue for the date, it makes its first appearance on the 1914 Ordnance Survey map.
The Villa Victoria was built in 1893 and replaced a beer house called the Victoria Cottage, transferring its licence. A beer house could only sell beer, so the owners of the new pub immediately applied for a full drinks licence. This was objected to by local clergymen and a group of Quakers led by the Pumphrey family, who were concerned about what its customers would get up to with a bellyful of strong spirits.
The application was made again the following year, and for many years afterwards, becoming a running joke when it was refused every time at the magistrates’ licensing sessions. There was a suspicion that the refusals were down to the Mayor of Newcastle, who owned property nearby. The pub’s lawyer was so exasperated in 1903 that he asked the bench if there was any way he could bribe them himself instead.
This tactic didn’t work and the Villa Victoria had to wait until 1961 before it got a full drinks licence. It closed down in 2021 and is a convenience store now, the shops on the right of the photo have been demolished and the site is occupied by Newcastle College.
Photo credits: Newcastle City Libraries & Newcastle Stuff.