Gateshead

“ Gateshead is nowadays a great deal worse than it was when Doctor Johnson called it “a dirty lane leading to Newcastle.” It may be ranked among the half-dozen dirtiest places on earth, and the lane which the Doctor saw has sent forth miles of streets as bad as itself, so p. 155that the geographical distribution of filth and squalor has in modern times become very wide. There are two ways of entering Newcastle since the High Level Bridge across the Tyne has supplemented what used to be the old Tyne Bridge, once, and until fifty years ago, the only way of crossing the river except by boat. ”

“ The ravine is of great depth—so deep and gloomy-looking toward dusk, that local tradition records that when the Duke of Cumberland arrived late in the evening, at the brow of the hill overlooking the Tyne, on his way to Culloden, he exclaimed to his attendants, on looking down into the black gorge before him, "For God's sake, don't think of taking me down that coal-pit at this time of night!" The road down the Gateshead High Street is almost as steep as the roof of a house, and up the Newcastle Side, as the street there is called, it is little better. ”

“ I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been) , I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician. ”

“ Some old and world-famed works have been closed or removed, like Hawks’ and Stephenson’s, but others, many others, have opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of industrial life represented on the river. ”

“ Seamen, 9000.—The population of Newcastle, exclusive of Gateshead, is 28,294; of which 15,945 are females, and only 12,349 males. The houses amount to 3276, and the families to 6845; a calculation that gives 82⁄3 to a house, and 41⁄2 to a family. The number of shipping cleared out from this port last year will at once give you an idea of the extent of its trade. There were 7840 vessels employed in exporting coal, coal-tar, and cinders; grind-stones, lead in all its forms ”

“ It commands a great prospect every way: I doubt not but they could see hence to the next castrum westward; to67 the east, over Newcastle to the late-mentioned little fort beyond Euxborn; so to Baker-mill hill: southward is a most delightful prospect up two fine valleys over the Tyne; so up the hills south of Gabrocentum, or Gateshead: the eye reaches too the sea-coast to Tunnocelum, or Tynmouth, and the mouth of the river. The village of Benwell subjacent was built out of the ruins of this place, and great quantity of stone is still left. ”

“ Showed in quite business-like fashion that Allan's poetic fancy had run away with him. Convinced grateful Committee that British boiler, on which safety of State may be said to rest, is all right. A model speech, brief, pointed. A man with something to say, who straightway sits down when he's said it. As the poet (not Allan o' Gateshead) says,
He came as a boon and a blessing to men,
The modest, the lucid, clear-pointed J. Penn.
MacGregor (as "The Dougal Creature") . "I'll pass from that point." Business done.—Committee voted trifle over four millions as wages for Jack. ”

“ The history of Gatton, in truth, goes back to immemorial times, and has no beginning: for where history thins out and becomes a mere scatter of disjointed scraps purporting [Pg 142] to be facts, tradition carries back the tale into a very fog of legend and conjecture. It was “Gatone” when the Domesday survey was made: the Saxon “Geat-ton,” the town in the “gate,” passage, or road through the North Downs, just as Reigate is the Saxon “Rige-geat,” the road over the ridge. ”

“ Gatward, just as I left college in 1752, a pair of coach horses, which was the only time I saw him. It was a great grief to his mother, who bore a good character, and kept the inn for many years after."
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There is a tradition, at least, that Mrs. Gatward afterwards obtained her son's body and had it buried in the cellar of her house in the High Street. The story is in the highest degree creditable to human nature, but there is no proof beyond the tradition. ”

“ In Merstham village, just beyond the “Feathers” inn, stood Merstham toll-gate, followed by that of Gatton, at Gatton Point, a mile distant, where the old route through Reigate goes off to the right, and the new—the seven miles between Gatton Point and Povey Cross, through Redhill—continues, straight as an arrow, ahead. The way is bordered on the right hand by Gatton Park, a spot the country folk rightly describe as an “old arnshunt place.” ”

“ And now they would come into port together and anchor somewhere east of Fifth Avenue—which, Kerns reflected, was far more proper a place for Gatewood than somewhere east of Suez, where young men so often sail.
And yet, and yet there was something melancholy in the pleasure he experienced. Gatewood was practically lost to him. He knew what might be expected from engaged men and newly married men. Gatewood's club life was ended—for a while; and there was no other man with whom he cared to embark for those brightly lighted harbors twinkling east of Suez across the metropolitan wastes. ”

“ In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach to our old gateway, and there proclaim it with a great flourish of trumpets. In 1850 his worship walked quietly to the accustomed place, and found that there was no fair to proclaim, and five years later the formality was entirely dispensed with, and silence reigned over the historic ground over which century after century the hearts of our forefathers throbbed with the outspoken joys of life. The old gateway, like many aged folk, has much on which to meditate in its advanced age. ”

“ So one day early in June the pitiful remnant of the Jamestown Colony went on board the two waiting ships. Sir Thomas Gates, the brave and wise captain of the expedition, was the last to leave the ruined town. With backward looks he left it, and ere he weighed anchor he fired a last salute to the lost colony. Then the sails were set, and the two little ships drifted down stream towards the open sea, carrying the beaten settlers back to old England. ”

“ Leaving the station behind, you turn to the right at the high road, and so come up a gentle, mile-long incline to Esher, where, instead of wheeling up the long street, the first turning to the right is taken for Hersham. This leads to a fine gravel road passing between Esher new church and the village green, with the lodge gates of Esher Place showing prominently away to the right. In the grounds, in a low-lying meadow by the river Mole, stands the picturesque battlemented Gatehouse, all that is left of the once proud, but unhealthy, palace of Cardinal Wolsey, built long before Hampton Court. ”

“ History and tradition are silent. No voice speaks out of the grave of the centuries. But both Reigate and Gatton are older than Anglo-Saxon times, for a Roman way, itself following the course of an even earlier savage trail, came up out of the stodgy clay of Holmesdale, over the chalky hills, to Streatham and London. It was a branch of the road leading from Portus Adurni—the present Old Shoreham, on the river Adur—and doubtless, in the long centuries of Romano-British civilisation, it was bordered here and there by settlements and villas. ”

“ The Gatehouse is approached from the middle ward by a bridge over the ditch, of which the inner end was broken by a drawbridge, flanked by walls with loops. The gateway has a low-pointed arch, on a tablet above which are the arms of Elizabeth and those of Sir Henry Sydney, with the date 1581. As the curtain is 7 feet thick, and bonded into the keep, it is evidently original, and the door fittings are an insertion. There is no portcullis. The entrance door opened into a passage, having the porter’s prison and the entrance to the keep on the left, and on the right the gatehouse chambers. ”

“ At Cold Ashton the gateway is more in scale with the house, and although the central feature above the cornice is mutilated, the arms still remain. The effect of this roadside gateway is heightened by the circular steps and the mounting-block. At Oundle, in Northamptonshire, there is an example of a small gateway in the front wall of some almshouses (Fig. 60) which, in spite of its insignificant size, imparts considerable interest and even dignity to the group of which it is the central feature. ”

“ The original fortified gatehouse, however, has been replaced by a picturesque half-timber structure of Elizabeth’s time, and the drawbridge by a solid [37] approach. The gateway led into a large courtyard, on the opposite side of which stood, and still stands, the house (see plan, Fig. 19) . The chief apartment, as usual, is the hall, not so large as that at Oakham, but still of fair size, 52 by 31 ft., that is to say large enough to contain, with plenty of space to spare, two complete houses such as now form the streets of a growing town. ”

“ Next morning one of the head officials came to the captain of the boat and said: 'Let go your lines and get out of this hell-hole as quickly as you can.' The trip was aban- doned and Rock Island Rapids was reported unnavigable.
The steamer John Gates was named after John Gates, the chief engineer of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. He succeeded Jacob Kamm in that position. He was born in Maine and came to California in 1849. In 1853 he came to Oregon. He is the inventor of the Gates hydraulic steering gear as well as many other valuable inventions. ”

“ To the south there is more to be seen. The inner gatehouse indeed is ruined, and nothing is visible above the rubbish save the outline of the western jamb, which shows a portcullis groove and rebate for folding-gates.
The outer gatehouse and its barbican form a very remarkable work. This barbican is, as has been stated, an expansion of the bank which surrounds the inner ditch. It is here above 80 feet broad, and long enough to cover completely the southern front of the place. The gatehouse, like that behind it, is much nearer to the east than to the west end of the work. ”

“ Gasson, a village in the parish of Blechingley, in Surry, at the source of the river Medway.
Gatehouse, Tothill street, Westminster, is so called from two gates, erected there in the reign of Edward III. Here is a prison for debtors and criminals. ”

“ Gates endeavoured to make religion the foundation of law and order. He effected a new settlement, and built a town called Henrico in honour of Prince Henry. His administration appears to have been discreet and provident. A third patent for Virginia, signed March 1612, granted to the shareholders in England the Bermudas and all islands within three hundred leagues of the Virginia shore, but this acquisition was subsequently transferred to a separate company. Gates returned to England in 1614, and endeavoured to revive and strengthen the fallen hopes of the London company of shareholders. ”

“ Much smaller than the base-court at Holdenby was the forecourt at Kenyon Peel, in Lancashire, a half-timber house with a symmetrical E front, and approached through a two-storey stone gatehouse, joined to the house itself by stone walls. The gatehouse is rather gaunt, like many of the stone buildings in that district, but in the little gateways in the side of the court (Fig. 62) an effort has been made to produce something less severe. ”

“ In Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, too, occurs in its perfection the quaint and picturesque custom of hanging external walls with tiles, the relative softness of which is favourable to the growth of lichens, and results in those brilliant bits of colour so dear to the water-colour sketcher. Every district has its own character, and the wise man will enjoy each in turn; no more expecting to find the brilliance of Surrey among the greys of Northamptonshire, than lamenting the absence of the soft tones of the Midlands among the wild moorlands of the North. ”

“ Gates promptly distributed provisions, such as he had, and introduced a code of martial law, the code that was strengthened later by De La Warr and made famous by its strict enforcement during the governorship of Sir Thomas Dale. After surveying the condition of the settlement and realizing that the supplies he had brought would not last three weeks, Gates took counsel with the leaders. They decided to abandon the settlement. On June 7, 1610, the settlers, except some of the Poles and Dutchmen who were with Powhatan, boarded the ship, left Jamestown, and started down the James. ”

“ Fearing that his own people might share the fate of the wretches before him, Gates at once resolved to take all the Europeans to Newfoundland, and there await, among the fishermen with whom it was now populated, the arrival of reinforcements from England. On the 7th June, 1609, the two vessels constructed on the Bermudas, and four crazy pinnaces which had belonged to the colonists, weighed anchor, and were dropping slowly from the country of which they had hoped such great things, when a boat was seen advancing to meet them from the sea. ”