About the town » Whickham, Gateshead, England, Great Britain

}} Whickham is a town in North East England, four miles south west of Newcastle upon Tyne and four and a half miles west of Gateshead. Whickham is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Its postal address is Whickham, Newcastle upon Tyne. Whickham is situated on high ground overlooking the River Tyne and the MetroCentre. It has a population of 16,263. Whickham is a middle class living town, with many social, cultural and business activities. This has always been the case. From the Romans to early English settlement to the Norman Conquest, agriculture, the Anglo-Scottish wars, the rise and fall of the coal and iron industries, the Reformation, the dawn of railway transportation, electoral reform, twentieth century war to suburbia, these great historical themes have influenced life in Whickham. The parish, which contains the ancient townships or quarters of Swalwell and Whickham, and part of Fellside, is bounded on the north by the Tyne, on the west by the parishes of Winlaton and Stella, on the south-west and south by Lamesley and Marley Hill and on the east by Dunston. The ancient parish also included Lowside or Dunston, which was formed into a distinct parish in 1872, and that part of Fellside which includes the villages of Marley Hill and Sunniside, which now form part of the township of Marley Hill. The parish priest is Revd. Barry Joseph Abbott. To the south-west, above the River Derwent, are the ruins of Old Hollinside, a fortified manor house dating probably from the thirteenth century. The village underwent some expansion in the 50s when the so called Lake District Estate was built just off Whickham Highway then later in the decade the Oakfield Estate just off Whaggs Lane was built. However house building in the early 60s truly transformed the village into a small town. Grange Estate began the seemingly unending development by Bell the builder which went on into Clavering Park, Clavering Grange, the Cedars and then Fellside Park. Schools followed but there is some debate that the real spirit of the village was lost when the main street of Whickham was demolished.