Opened in 1876, generations of Tynesiders have flocked to Saltwell Park in Gateshead
Thirty-nine public parks in the North East have been named among the best in the UK and gained Green Flag awards. The award scheme recognises and rewards well-run parks, setting the standard for the management of green spaces in this country and around the world.
One of the region’s parks picking up an award will next year mark its 150th anniversary. Generations of Tynesiders have flocked to Saltwell Park, in Gateshead, which opened to the public on the Whit weekend of 1876. The expanse of rolling green land was originally owned by William Wailes, a tea merchant and grocer in Newcastle who over time became a wealthy Victorian glass manufacturer.
His money enabled him to acquire the Saltwellside estate which he eventually sold for £35,000 to the town of Gateshead in 1875 a year before it opened as a public park.
Saltwell Towers sitting in the middle of Saltwell Park was built by Wailes as a magnificent home in 1862, employing a mix of Elizabethan and Gothic influences. One of the 19th century’s most celebrated park designers, Edward Kemp, was the visionary mind behind the magnificent area we know and love today. Kemp charged Gateshead
Council four guineas a day, plus travelling expenses, to lay out the park. It took nearly 10 years for Kemp’s vision to become reality at Saltwell.
Local historian Anthea Lang is the author of ‘Saltwell Park, The Story Of The People’s Park’, published by Summerhill Books. She tells how the park would have been a huge attraction for the working class population of Victorian-era industrial Gateshead. “To the poor who were living in squalid, overcrowded conditions on the Quayside and in some of the squares and entries off High Street, the park must have created a vision of paradise with its green fields, flowers and other landscape features.”
During World War II, the park was employed for the national ‘Holidays at Home’ scheme and also for Home Guard training. Over the years, it has hosted jubilees, concerts, celebrations, bonfires, circuses, bowling tournaments and festivals, and even an installment of the popular 1970s BBC TV programme, It’s A Knockout.
Features have come and gone, including the Indo-Chinese pavilion, the Cube and the Ocean Wave. There was also the Saltwell Airways plane – a stripped-down former BAE passenger aircraft – which served as a children’s play attraction between 1983 and 1993.
There are 12 Grade II-listed structures in the park and memorials to the Boer War and the First and Second world wars. At the turn of the 2000s, after falling into disrepair, the park enjoyed a £10m restoration project, returning it to its original Victorian splendour.
Covering 55 acres, with its huge expanse of greenery, its lake, its children’s play areas, its maze and pets’ corner; its walking and jogging routes, its bowling greens, tennis and basketball courts – as well as the ‘fairytale castle’ of Saltwell Towers with its cafe and visitor centre – Saltwell Park remains one of Tyneside’s favourite family destinations, with around two million people visiting every year.
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