CASTLE WARD UNION
WORKHOUSE IN PONTELAND
Castle Ward Poor Law Union came into existence in September
1836. There were 79 elected Guardians on
the Board and they represented the 77 townships in an extensive rural area that
were combined to form the Union. They
ranged from Dinnington to Kirkheaton and from Heddon to Stannington. The total population covered was, according
to the 1831 census, over 15 000 people.
A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded a poorhouse at Heddon which was
small and so a new Workhouse was built in 1848-49 on the North Road in
Ponteland by local builder John Donkin on land bought from Matthew Bell. In 1887 an extension was built to serve as a
hospital. In 1890 about one and a half
acres were bought adjoining the north side of the Workhouse and in 1903 a board
room and offices were added.
The building had several uses after closure in 1984,
including housing YT students taking courses at Kirkley Hall and the last use
was as a day nursery called The Cogs.
The workhouses were abolished in name in 1930 but the
problems they were supposed to solve still remained and the workhouse in
Ponteland was renamed the Poor Law Institution, still looking after the old,
the sick and the incapable. It was the
responsibility of the County Council’s Public Assistance Committee until
1948. In 1940 it became an emergency
hospital for convalescent soldiers, TB patients, some evacuees and later
post-operative patients from Newcastle General Hospital. When the National Health Service came into
being in 1948 it continued as the Ponteland Hospital, run by the Newcastle
Authorities, and nursing elderly patients mainly from the west end of
Newcastle. It closed in 1993, was
demolished in 1995, and the site bought for housing by Cussins. It was appropriately named Guardians
Court. Some of the workhouse brick wall
is still standing with its Victorian letterbox and now encloses the gardens of
these town houses on the North Road.
The Ponteland Hospital which was housed in the extended
workhouse buildings was closed in 1993 after a hard fought campaign to keep it
open. It was a well regarded
establishment employing a number of local people and had a very active Friends
group which raised funds for extras for the elderly patients.
