TWENTIETH CENTURY DEFENCE SITES of TYNE and WEAR

Section 3 The Second World War
controlled from Jesmond Dene House (see
below). Three main police stations, including
Pilgrim Street, formed the sub-control, and
then there was a complex of ARP premises,
which included garages, schools, church
halls etc. There were eight First Aid Posts,
including Central School at Pendower and
the public baths at Wharrier Street. Local
hospitals provided casualty reception beds
where needed. Decontamination centres
included Condercum Road and Welbeck
Road. Twenty three sirens were located
across the city. Emergency water supplies
were provided in the form of dams or steel
tanks (for example a dam at the Cremona
Toffee Works on Benton Road and a steel
tank at Carliol Square). Local schools
primarily provided emergency canteen
facilities – such as Church High School and
Muscott Grove School. Schools and church
halls provided emergency rest and feeding
facilities. Members of the ARP distributed
gas masks to civilians. In Gateshead the
ARP control centre was South Dene Tower at
Saltwell Park. Roy Ripley and Brian Pears’
website has full lists of ARP sites in
Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland.
Their diary accounts demonstrate how the
system worked. For instance on 27 January
1941 Walker Naval Yard was bombed.
Workmen working on a jetty were injured
when two high explosive bombs were
dropped, creating a crater 25 feet in
diameter. There were also injuries from
broken glass to those working in the
anglesmiths shop. Thirty one people were
treated by the yard’s First Aid party, but two
had to be sent to the Royal Victoria Infirmary,
twelve to Walker Hospital and two to the
Wharrier Street First Aid post (Ripley and
Pears 1994-2006).
This aspect of the Home Front has left
almost no trace on the landscape today. The
buildings requisitioned as ARP centres
reverted to previous use and the many
thousands of Wardens and Special
Constables resumed their civilian
occupations. Occasionally, the painted letters
“EWS” can be seen, denoting an Emergency
54
Water Supply, as at the Claremont Road
entrance to Exhibition Park, where the
boating lake was to be used in the event of a
loss through bomb damage of the mains
supply. At Panama Gardens, Whitley Bay,
there is a memorial to a local primary school
teacher, Doris Ewbank, killed driving an
ambulance during an air raid in 1941.
Panama Gardens, Whitley Bay
Memorial to Doris Ewbank
63 Jesmond Dene House, ARP
and Home Guard
Headquarters (HER 1953)
In 1940, Jesmond Dene House was used as
the Headquarters for the 80 men of No. 2
Company of the 12th Batallion
Northumberland Home Guard, where
volunteers would be trained in the tactics
they would use in the event of an invasion.
However, the house soon proved unsuitable
for training, and so the Home Guard HQ was