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PEGSWOOD MAIN STREET.
This
photograph was taken c1900. To the right of the photograph is Portland Place,
the first of the miners’ rows to be erected in Pegswood during the early 1870s.
The row continues with Bentinck Place, however, this cannot be seen for the
building which sticks out at right angles to the street. Rows in Pegswood were
always known and referred to as streets. This building was the first school to
be built in Pegswood c 1874. Later this school was to be transformed into the
Working Men’s Institute.
Of
special interest is the fact that this school building is of a single gable
construction. Two smaller extensions appear to be built onto its side, the
roofs of which can be seen in the photograph. Later, this building was enlarged
to a double gable building in place of the extensions. Only a footpath ran down
that side. Some have described this building as a Mechanics Institute but this
was never so. It was built as a school and when it came to the end of its days
as such, it was converted into a Working Men’s Institute c1904. It remained in
that capacity until its eventual demise in the late 1960s along with Portland
and Bentick.
Straight opposite this building in the photograph, can be seen a
substantial building or rather two substantial buildings. The larger of the two
is the Co-Op building built in the early 1880s. However, the nearest building
of the two has the same shape as part of the Welfare Hall. This building stands
directly opposite the school.
The
Welfare Hall was not built until 1927. A closer look at this building shows
that it is an early part of what was to become the Welfare Hall. In fact this
would appear to be the Mechanics Institute. A Mechanics Institute is recorded
as being in existence at the time.
In
1873, a reporter from the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle arrived in Pegswood,
judging by his writing, looking for sensational stories. Among the many of his
observations was the fact that there was no school. The school was opened the
following year and there must have been some work going on with it at the time.
However, he goes on: ‘The only break in this dark social cloud is a Mechanics
Institute in course of erection at the village.’ There is no other site in the
village dating from this time. It is reasonably safe to assume the building on
the left of the photograph and the Mechanics Institute are one and the same.