History and a Rose of Tralee (Jarrow in general)

Member Name: meah

Product:	Jarrow in general
Date:	21/03/02 (312 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Close to Newcastle , Strong Community Spirit, History

Disadvantages: No Nightclubs, No where for a decent meal

Like most small towns throughout the country Jarrow appears to have little to offer the visitor and when you ask people living in the town what they think of Jarrow you will probably be told there is nothing in Jarrow but most people can not see the wood for the trees and in fact Jarrow has a fair bit to offer.

Parks and Recreation

King George V playing field has four full size football pitches and hosts Sunday league matches, Saturday morning junior football matches and has a swing park for children.

Valley View Park is divided in two by a road, which goes over the small River Don, which at this point is no more than a two metre wide, stream; one side of the park has been cultivated to have a country feel with an abundance of trees and wild flowers, children fish in the Don for stickleback and use stepping stones to get from one bank to the other; over the road in the other part of the park you find a swing park for children, a picnic area, tennis courts and two bowling greens, this part of the park is very neat with flower beds and low privet hedges but around the embankment of the river again you have the feel of being in the country with wild flowers and trees.

Only a few minutes walk from Valley View Park is Springwell Park; this is a small park developed on both banks of the Don, again children use this park in the summer for catching sticklebacks with nets. The Bede Gallery is the main feature of Springwell Park, it was opened in the early 1970’s and usually houses displays of photographs of past life in Jarrow but at times does have some very good exhibitions of modern art.

Mill Dean Farm is within walking distance of the parks; the farm is a children’s town farm with all the usual animals, children can bottle feed lambs and watch sheep being sheared among other things. The farm has special family fun days and runs educational visits for schools.

Monkton Stadium is the home of the Jarrow and
Hebburn Athletics Club, Steve Cram and David Sharpe are former members of the club and Jarad Deacon still trains there, all three have represented Great Britain at Olympic Games level.

West Park can be found on one side of the Shopping Centre and Druids Park on the other side. West Park has laid out flowerbeds, lawns, tennis courts and a children’s play area. Druids Park has a children’s play area, large green for family games and a picnic area.

Shopping and Night Life

Jarrow shopping centre is adequate for grocery shopping and day to day essentials, there is Morrisons, Summerfield, Iceland, Woolworth’s, three butchers, three florists, four greeting card shops, three fruit and vegetable shops, Boots and Savers. If you want clothes or shoes you don’t stand much chance of finding what you are looking for in Jarrow, there is a branch of Peacocks and Select but that’s it and the rest of the shopping centre is made up of shops selling inexpensive goods and charity shops. You can get a Metro from the Town Centre into Newcastle, which takes about ten minutes or South Shields, which takes about seven minutes.

Nightlife in Jarrow is non-existent for the younger generation, there are plenty of pubs, social clubs and bingo halls but youngsters have to go to Newcastle or South Shields for meals and nightclubs. The nearest cinema complex is ten minutes out of Jarrow town centre on the business park.

History

The Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel links Jarrow with Howdon and when it was opened in the early 1950’s it had the longest escalator in the world and today it is still the longest working wooden escalator in existence. The tunnel is actually two tunnels running parallel with each other, one for cyclists and one for pedestrians.

St. Paul’s Church and St. Bede’s Monastery were founded in the 7th Century and the church is still in daily use. The Benedictine Monastery is where
the great scholar St. Bede lived, worked and died; his most famous work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Unfortunately the Monastery is now in ruins.

Jarrow Hall is in the grounds of Bede’s World; the Hall houses a museum of genuine Anglo-Saxon artefacts and caters for educational visits and Bede’s World is a reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon Jarrow with a working farm, village, demonstrations of Anglo-Saxon crafts and life in a Monastery.

Other Famous Sons and Daughters of Jarrow

The late Catherine Cookson was born and grew up in Jarrow and visitors can book on a coach tour of the Cookson Trail taking them to many venues in the area that inspired Catherine and mentioned in her books.

Ellen Wilkinson was brought up in a working class Jarrow family; she became Member of Parliament for the Town, a union organizer, parliamentary secretary to the ministry of home security during World War II and then Minister of Education in 1945.

The musicians John Miles and Alan Price are both Jarrow boys and Alan Price based one of his songs on the town – Come on you Jarra Lads, we’ll make your hearts feel glad etc., the song was about the Jarrow March of 1936 when the men of Jarrow walked to London to demonstrate against unemployment.

Jarrow’s Rose of Tralee

This year the Town is to host the National Finals of the Rose of Tralee competition, it has this honour because last year the winner of the English Rose of Tralee competition was from Jarrow.

Tralee is a small town in Ireland and each year an Inter-National competition is held
to select the Rose of Tralee, competitions are held throughout the world and each
Countries finalist goes to Tralee for the World Final. The competition is not a beauty
pageant as such, girls who take part have to have Irish ancestry and be able to show some skill reflecting Irish culture such as Irish dancing, singing, pla
ying the harp or violin etc.; candidates for the competition also have to have academic ability.

The establishment of the Irish community in Jarrow dates back to the potato famine, which drove many thousands to emigrate, many of these families found jobs in the once great Palmer shipyard on the Jarrow bank of the Tyne and the strong Irish communities are still very evident today.

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