In the eighteenth century, wealthy families bought much of the land around the village green and enclosed it to make private gardens around their houses. You can see examples of these in the Whickham Park estate, Whickham Lodge, Dockendale Hall, The Hermitage, and the former Rectory of 1713 (now Whickham Cottage Medical Centre). Chase Park was the largest of these private estates, though its large house was demolished in 1959.In the preceding eighteenth century, wealthy families bought much of the land around the village green and enclosed it to make private gardens around their houses. You can see examples of these in the Whickham Park estate, Whickham Lodge, Dockendale Hall, The Hermitage, and the former Rectory of 1713 (now Whickham Cottage Medical Centre). Chase Park was the largest of these private estates, though its large house was demolished in 1959.
The rawlings and the leatons
The mansion was called Whickham House (renamed The Chase around 1914). The house was probably built around 1750 by Thomas Rawling, an expert in coal-boring. He and his family used boring rods to drill below the ground to find coal seams, and these expert tools were passed down three generations of the family into the nineteenth century. Coal provided heat for houses and for the Industrial Revolution, and landowners who controlled the mining of coal grew extremely wealthy. These families, including the Bowes, Claverings and Liddels, lived in grand houses and country estates (Gibside, Axwell Hall and Ravensworth Castle). The Rawling family were well rewarded for their coal boring expertise and could afford to buy up most of the land on the south side of Whickham village green, though they also retained their earlier farm at Marshall Lands. Thomas Rawling died in 1763, and in his will he left ‘to my grandson Anthony Leaton the dwelling house on the south side of Whickham wherein I dwelt’. He noted that the house had six rooms or chambers. A plan of the house in the 1920s that showed three rooms on the ground floor and three bedrooms above, but much of the interior was occupied by a large entrance hall on the ground floor with a staircase leading to a gallery on the first floor, from which the bedrooms were entered. Whickham House was very similar in appearance and plan to Whickham Lodge on the other side of Broom Lane, which was built in 1740 by John and Frances Barras. Whickham House was possibly earlier, as it had a double pile plan with two gables, as can also be seen in the former Rectory of 1713 (now the medical centre). The north front of the house looked across the road and village green to the parish church. People leaving the church, and travellers on the road through the village, would see the house of this wealthy family at the centre of Whickham. This gave the house, and its owners, great prestige.
THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STABLES
The stable block is an eighteenth-century building and reminds us of the importance and expense of horses before trains, buses and cars. Only the wealthiest people could afford horses and carriages in which to travel. The stable and the coach house (which stood where the wooden building is now) were important status symbols for the owners of Whickham House. It has some similar features to the much larger stables at Gibside, including the raised surrounds to the doors and windows, and the use of well-cut stone blocks rather than rubble. The Gibside stables, which are listed grade 2*, were designed by the architect Daniel Garrett and built in 1747. Daniel Garrett also designed the Gibside Banqueting House, Wallington Hall, the Newcastle Infirmary, Nunwick Hall, Fenham Hall, Blagdon Hall and probably Dunston Hill House. The Gibside stables include coach-houses, and are four ranges around a courtyard, reflecting the great wealth of the Bowes family, whilst a professional family such as the Rawlings and Leatons would need only single range for stables and for the separate coach-house. In view of the Rawlings’ and the Leatons' work for the Bowes family at Gibside they may have derived the design of the Whickham House stables from the Gibside stables.
The Coach house stood where the wooden building is now. This was Whickham Library in the 1970s before the current library in St Mary’s Green was built in the 1980s. It later served as Council Offices.
OWNERSHIP of whickham house AND GROUNDS
Anthony Leaton, who inherited Whickham House in 1763, was also involved in the coal industry. He was the estate steward or manager for the Bowes family of Gibside. Leaton also had income from brewing and agriculture, and in 1778 he inherited £40,000 (about £5 million today) from his uncle William Leaton, who had also been the steward for the Bowes family. Anthony Leaton married Elizabeth Blenkinsopp in 1776. Elizabeth was the heiress of George Blenkinsopp, a wealthy Newcastle merchant who died in 1768, leaving her his house and money.
When Anthony died in 1803 his wife Elizabeth married in 1805 John Thomas Gosli-Carigan of Stamford, Lincolnshire (1778-1836). He had apprenticed as a linen-draper in Grantham in 1791. They changed their surname to Carrighan, but later separated and she lived under the name Mrs Carrighan until her death in 1827. On the map of waste areas in Whickham in 1820, Mrs Carrighan occupied Whickham House.
After Elizabeth’s death in 1827, the house passed to Anthony and Elizabeth Leaton’s son George Thomas Leaton Blenkinsopp (1783-1864). George was very wealthy and also owned the Whaggs (a house formerly at the junction of Broom Lane and Whaggs Lane, now Elm Court) and Whickham Hall (now the Rectory) in Church Chare.
He also owned Hoppyland Hall, near Wolsingham, County Durham. On inheriting Whickham House from his mother in 1827 he took the additional surname of Blenkinsopp (from his mother’s family). He was an eminent lawyer in County Durham, serving as a Justice of the Peace, the Senior Magistrate of County Durham, and the Deputy Lieutenant of Durham and Northumberland. In 1807 he married Harriet Collingwood of Lilburn Tower, a long-established family in Northumberland and they had five children. Despite this wealth and prestige, George embroiled himself in scandal, for he had an adulterous relationship with Jane Longstaff, daughter of his woodman at Hoppyland Park from 1835 until his death. He maltreated his wife Harriet, and when she sued him for divorce on the grounds of adultery and cruelty he fled to Edinburgh, having signed all of his property over to two solicitors. He claimed to be beyond the jurisdiction of the English Courts, but the judges disagreed and Harriet was granted a divorce on 23 April 1843. George was ordered to pay Harriet’s legal costs and to pay her £160 per year. He refused to pay and was found in contempt of court. Harriet took her case to the Court of Chancery in London, and won again. The Master of the Rolls condemned George for his ‘deplorable perversity’ and his transfer of property to the solicitors as a deliberate intention to defraud his wife. This legal case Blenkinsop vs Blenkinsop is significant because it established that wives and children could not be left destitute. Up until this time, the wife and all of her money and property became the property of her husband. Leaton Blenkinsop’s mistreatment of his wife and daughter led to a change in this view.
George Leaton Blenkinsop eventually returned to Hoppyland Park before his death in 1864, but perhaps because of the scandal, the Leaton Blenkinsopps left Whickham. In 1842, the mill field was in the ownership of George Thomas Leaton Blenkinsopp, though it was occupied by several people: the part now occupied by the houses facing onto Broom Lane and area between these and the line of trees running from the windmill was occupied by Ellison Ismay. The section of the park from these trees, including the windmill, across to Rectory Lane, was occupied by Benjamin Adamson. The line of trees leading from the windmill were planted in the nineteenth century, perhaps to celebrate one of Queen Victoria’s jubilees.
In 1881, Whickham Cottage Estate [The Whaggs], South and North Corn Moor Farms, Whickham Hall, Rose Villa and a house and joiner's shop in the village were sold at auction. It is unclear when the Leaton Blenkinsopp’s sold Whickham House.
Whickham House was let out from 1838, when a newspaper advert described the house, offices and pleasure grounds as ‘containing every convenience for the residence of a gentleman’s family’; the grounds included the corn mill and mill field. As well as the main house, there was the stable block (which still stands), and where the redundant wooden buildings are located stood the coach-house. At the bottom of the drive, at the junction with Front Street, was a lodge. In local newspapers, Miss H.E. Weatherley, daughter of John Weatherley of Whickham House was married on 3 March 1840 in Leith, Edinburgh to John Leishmen, writer to the Signet, of Drummond Place, Edinburgh. (Newcastle Courant 6 March 1840). Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Shaw of Whickham House married at Whickham church on 24 February 1844.
William Brockett (Newcastle Guardian, 7 October 1848) of Whickham House announced the birth of a son in October 1848, but Mr Brockett, a lawyer and racehorse trainer, was declared bankrupt and an outlaw in 1856 after committing ‘as scandalous frauds as ever disgraced a court of justice’! The contents of Whickham House were sold in 1859.
A Mr George Forster lived in the house after this but his possession were sold in 1861. The house was advertised to let again in Newcastle Courant 13 May 1864. After this time there seems to have been some stability, for the house was occupied, if not owned, by a family called Brown from before 1871 to about 1911. In 1871 Agnes Brown lived here with her son William, daughter Agnes and two servants. In addition, the gardeners’ house was occupied by William and Julia Luck, and in the lodge at Rectory Lane were the coachman John Burns and his family. The coach house and stables remind us that wealthy people travelled by horse or carriage at a time when most people had to walk. In 1883 Kelly’s Directory noted that Mrs Brown was living at Whickham House, and in 1891 William and Helen Brown, their four sons, his sister Agnes Brown and four servants lived there.
By 1901, the younger Agnes Brown was still living with her brother William and his wife and six children. In addition, they had a cook, kitchen maid and servant. The other buildings were occupied by the coachman, John Muncaster and his family, and the gardener Francis Jackson and his family. A total of 20 people lived and worked here. The Browns had sold Whickham House by 1911, when Isabella Taylor, a widow, lived in Whickham House with her daughter, their cook and two servants. The Jackson family were employed as gardeners. Isabella was the widow of Henry Edmund Taylor, owner of the Swalwell Brewery and former owner of The Hermitage at the west end of Whickham Front Street.
Up to this time the mansion was called Whickham House, but in 1914 the house was called The Chase and was owned by Mr Peter Norman Haggie. He was manager of Haggie Brothers, wire and hemp rope manufacturers on South Shore Road in Gateshead. On 1 May 1914 Haggie’s chauffeur was involved in a motor accident that killed a seven year old boy, Martin Arthurs, on the road beside the village green.
In the period up to the First World War houses were built to the south of the Mill Field and Millfield Road laid out. At the west end was The Beacon and at the east end Millfield House. In the 1920s, Cornmoor Road was driven south from Millfield Road to join Broom Lane and bungalows, called suburban villas in planning documents, were laid out with very large gardens, many of which have been built in in the last forty years.
The mansion house was bought by Mr Joseph Wilkinson and his wife after World War One. Mr Wilkinson was a soft drinks manufacturer. On 27 December 1921, a fire damaged the interior of the house, but Wilkinson repaired the house in 1922, adding the bay window on the east side. The tall gate pillars at the entrance from Rectory Lane were a sign that the park was once private land.
A lodge for the gatekeeper formerly stood on the right-hand side of the drive inside the gate pillars, so that the public could be kept out of the private gardens around Whickham House.
Mr Wilkinson replaced this lodge in 1929 with the row of single storey shops facing onto Front Street, and converted the former coach house into servants’ accommodation.
Acquisition of the Chase estate by Whickham UDC
The house and gardens, bounded on the north by the Front Street and running east to west from the main entrance gates at the junction of Rectory Lane and Front Street to Broom Lane and southwards to Millfield Lane, were bought by Whickham Urban District Council in 1937. This purchase by Whickham Urban District Council ensured that this large area in the centre of the village was not built on for houses or shops and gave us the public park we enjoy today. Council workers built the entrance road from Millfield Road and laid paths and drains, and levelled ground for the children’s play area. The Wilkinsons may have created the sunken garden behind the former stables, as it was replanted by the council workers in 1938.
The entrance to the Park from Broom Lane is set back from the road and on each side are carved panels. These commemorate King George V, who reigned 1910-1936. He led Britain through the First World War. He also made the first Royal Christmas Broadcast to the country on Christmas Day 1932. He was very popular and when he died many councils created public parks as memorials. The shields show that Whickham’s Chase Park was one of these King George’s Fields, designated as such by Whickham UDC when they created the public park in 1938. The park opened to the public on 9th May 1939. The Park at War
Even before opening as a public park the threat of a new war with Germany led the councillors to plan to use The Chase for civil defence. In April 1938, The Chase was equipped as the Air Raid Precautions Headquarters, with a message room, offices for the Medical Officer, Chief Fire Officer, the Surveyor, Chief ARP Warden, First Aid Commandant, and the Superintendents of the decontamination and rescue parties. The terror of gas warfare, as seen in the First World War, was never far from people’s minds, and on 26 September 1938 20,500 gas masks were delivered to The Chase and then distributed to everyone in Whickham Urban District (including Swalwell, Dunston, Byermoor and Marley Hill, as well as Whickham). In June 1940 a Personnel Cleansing Station was set up in The Chase, with decontamination rooms and showers. The first floor bathroom was converted into the Gas Identification Officer’s room. A first aid post and casualty clearing station were installed at The Chase in September 1940, with 7 male and 33 female volunteers under the charge of Dr R Wilkie-Smith.
The Chief Superintendent of Parks reported in March 1940 that 2,000 geraniums and batches of other flowers were potted up in Chase Park ready for the summer floral display, but by January 1941, he reported that as part of the ‘Dig for Victory Campaign’ the flower beds at Chase Park, Swalwell Garden House cemetery and Dunston recreation ground would be used to grow onions, leeks and beetroot. The nursery greenhouses would be used to raise tomatoes and the spare land in the cemeteries would be used to grow potatoes. A plot of land was laid out in Chase Park to illustrate the range of vegetables that could be grown in a garden or allotment.
The Auxiliary Fire Brigade also used The Chase during World War Two. They dried their hoses by hanging them from the large tree next to the wooden library building. If you look carefully you can see two of the pulleys used to hoist up the hoses.
The wartime modifications damaged the house and it was left empty after the war, and suffered from neglect and vandalism. It was demolished in 1959, leaving only the stable block.
Chase Park 1945 to the present
One of the most active groups using the Park today are Whickham Bowls Club. The bowling green was laid out in the 1940s and teams from around the country have competed here ever since. Tennis courts were laid out at the same time as the bowling green. In keeping with changes to young people’s activities, a recent project converted one of the tennis courts to a skate park.
Since its opening the Park has hosted many community events, including the Round Table, Whickham Lions and Scouts Fayres. There was a Pets Corner, a home for rabbits, goats and birds including parrots, budgies and cockatoos. These animals were always well fed by local children. There was also an outdoor paddling pool next to the path to the bowling pavilion, where many children played during the summer months.
The former stables were fitted up as a garage and office for the Council gardeners, and until 2001, one of the gardeners’ families lived on the upper floor. There was a four bedroom flat with living room, bathroom and kitchen on the first floor. They had a private garden next to the stables.
Increasing cuts to Council budgets led to a decline in maintenance and in 2010 a community group, The Friends of Chase Park, was established. They made a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2015 and were awarded nearly £1 million to renovate the Park. You can see their efforts today.
New decorative metal sculptures were made by Graeme Hopper, wood carvings created by Tommy Craggs, and designs by local schoolchildren were carved on the wooden seats, and a history trail written. These community-led activities have helped to rejuvenate the Park, and ensured that it remains the heart of Whickham and a place of enjoyment for all.