Southwick History And Preservation Society

"A PHOTOGRAPHIC CENSUS OF SOUTHWICK"

A Project funded by the Local Heritage Initiative*

The Local Heritage Initiative (LHI) is a partnership between the Heritage Lottery Fund, Nationwide Building Society and the Countryside Agency.

Welcome to the project pages of the

Southwick History And Preservation Society

Founded in October 2002

Since 1928, the district of Southwick on Wear has been located within the boundary of Sunderland in the North East of England. There is little doubt that the name Southwick is Scandinavian, and given by the Norsemen in the ninth century, after their invasion of Monkwearmouth. In its pure original form it would be “Sudvik,” then “Sudwick,” a compound word, composed of “Sud,” meaning “South,” and “vik” or “wick,” meaning a “place on a stream”. Indeed, Southwick is still referred to, affectionately, by the locals as "Suddick".

Prior to 1928, Southwick was a township in its own right, with its own Urban District Council. Southwick has a rich history and, prior to around the year 1800, comprised mainly of agricultural lands. The southern area of the Township bordered on the banks of the River Wear, which played a great part in its growth. The map below, of the year 1737, shows only one row of buildings on, what is now Southwick Green, whilst a track at the east end of The Green, known as Scots Bank, leads down to the ferry landing to Bishopwearmouth. It is believed that the bank got its name from the Scots army, which is said to have marched down the bank to the ferry landing, at the time of the Jacobean uprisings, before they crossed to Bishopwearmouth, where they established a camp near Bishopwearmouth Church.

Southwick (Suddick) in 1737

In the early to mid 19th Century, wooden shipbuilding commenced on the riverside. Glassmaking, potteries and engineering companies were established in Southwick, resulting in a growth in exports around the work, proliferating the work in the shipyards. The map of Low Southwick below, dates from 1846, and the shipbuilding yards can be seen along the riverbank, also on the map is the Crown Glassworks and the Southwick Bottleworks, whilst agriculture is still the mainstay in the surrounding fields. Anthony Scott's pottery lies just off the map to the right.

Low Southwick in 1846

As a fledgling Local and Family History Group, based in Southwick, we are having some difficulty finding old photographs taken at Southwick. We regularly get request from people researching Family History, for photographs of streets where there ancestors were living. Unfortunately, our usual reply has to be that we have not got one. Photography, in bygone days, was not a hobby for the Working Class, due to the expense of the equipment and developing costs for films. Family photographs consist mainly of formal portraits, often taken by professional photographers, in studios. Consequently, many of the older photographs, particularly of local views, are those which were distributed on Postcards. We are fortunate to have been given access to the Postcard collections of Mr Tom Marshall and Mr Tony Cook, both of which contain some interesting old photographs of Southwick. We are also indebted to Sunderland Museum, which has made available a number of Southwick photographs from it's archives. Many of the Museum photographs were taken in the 1960's just before, or during, the demolition of many properties in Southwick.

Due to the difficulty in sourcing old photographs, we, as a local history group, considered how our children, and our children's children would fare in the future. Surely, they would have the same problem as ourselves.

To compound our problem, the landscape in Southwick is set to change markedly in the coming years. Sunderland Housing Group, which owns many former Council Houses across Sunderland, aims to demolish a large proportion of its housing stock in High Southwick, to be replaced by newly built dwelling houses. Also, four of the infant schools which serve Southwick are to close, the pupils from one of them will be transferred to an existing school, whilst a new school will be built to replace the other three primary schools. This will, most likely, result in the demolition of the present school buildings.

Because of the impending demolition, school closures and rebuilding programme, it is considered that there is an urgent need to take a photographic and video record the Southwick of today, so that the people of the Southwick of tomorrow can appreciate the changes that have occurred to their heritage. Consequently, our Society became aware, through press announcements, of the availability of funding for Local Heritage projects, through the Local Heritage Initiative (LHI) which is a partnership between the Heritage Lottery Fund, Nationwide Building Society and the Countryside Agency.

The LHI website was visited at http://www.lhi.org.uk/index.html and the necessary information and an application forms were downloaded. LHI can also be contacted by post at:

Local Heritage Initiative, Countryside Agency, John Dower House, Crescent Place, Cheltenham, Gloucester, GL50 3RA.

Our initial submission to LHI was for a grant to cover the cost of photographing every street within the old Southwick Urban District boundary of 1928, after which time Southwick became a district in the Sunderland Borough Council area. However, after consultation with LHI, a revised submission was made to include the photographs - which would be taken with a better specification Digital Camera, but also to include the conversion of some old Cine Film of Southwick, and oral interviews with Southwick folk, using Video and Audio equipment. The assistance of local schools and other groups in the local community was also included.

Work has already commenced in capturing photographs of the various streets in Southwick and, to date, around 1,000 photographs have been taken.

Queen Alexandra Bridge and George Clark's hammer head crane - prominent landmarks of Southwick

A sample of the recent photographs taken in Southwick, Abbay Street on left and Yewtree Avenue on right.

The Project also includes interviewing Southwick folk, either by audio, video, or both formats together, to build up an archive of Oral History about Southwick. To enable us to complete this work, expert training is being provided by Living History North East, which has great expertise in this particular subject. Volunteers from the group are being trained as interviewers, before being let loose, in and around Southwick. If you have any links with Southwick, and would be willing to be interviewed for this project, please email the Project Leader at Southwickhaps@aol.com


Pauline Carney (left) and David Bryce (right) receive expert advice from Janette Hilton of Living History North East	James Bryce and Ann Blakelock collate information for the project.

Another phase of the project is to transfer some cine film, taken in Southwick, and transfer it onto DVD. The Scrafton family have some interesting 8mm film of life in Southwick in the 1960's and, to enable the present generation to view it on the present technology, work will shortly commence to capture the footage with a Video camera and save it digitally, thus enabling it to be edited on computer with video editing software.


Cine film in the process of being captured using facilities and equipment at Living History North East	Street scenes at Nelson Street, Southwick, are transferred from cine to digital video tape.

Whilst the Photographic Census Project has now been completed, we continue to build up an archive of information and photographs about Southwick on Wear. If you have any information or photographs which may help us in that endeavour, please contact us.

How to Contact SHAPS:

You can write to us at: SHAPS, c/o 13 Hampden Road, Roker, Sunderland, England, SR6 9QQ. You are also welcome to contact us at one of our meetings - see our website at http://www.southwickhistory.org.uk/ for details, or email us at Southwickhaps@aol.com

Web page designer: James Bryce Southwickhaps@aol.com

Disclaimer: This website is the property of the Southwick History And Preservation Society which is solely responsible for the content. Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this website. However, neither the webmaster nor Southwick History And Preservation Society can be held liable for errors, omissions or the consequences thereof.

To view our home page, click below:

http://www.southwickhistory.org.uk/