One of the aims of the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust is to improve and promote access
to documents held within Northumberland Archives. Projects have been funded to list collections as
well as adding descriptive content to existing collections. This additional information is added to our
catalogue making the content available and searchable via the Online Catalogue on the
Northumberland Archives website either at home or in the search rooms. The current cataloguing
project focuses on a collection of deeds relating to lands owned by members of the Clayton family in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In 1884 Nathaniel George Clayton acquired the Bath House Estate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne which
included a mansion called Bath House, shops and dwelling houses at Westgate Road, dwelling
houses in Villa Place, and tithes from hereditaments formerly called Moats Gardens. The
conveyance refers to an earlier deed of 1873 in which the boundary of the lands was defined and
detailed on a map. In between the two transactions a number of mortgages raised funds secured
against the Estate. Like his uncle, John Clayton, before him, Nathaniel was also interested in
acquiring property and land with a close proximity to the Roman Wall.
Using the plan included on the 1873 deed it is possible to compare it to other plans to see changes
to central Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The main streets named on the plan are Bath Lane and Westgate
Hill.
The 1844 ‘Plan of Newcastle and part of Gateshead’ by Thomas Oliver predates the conveyances mentioned; it highlights that part the boundary of the Bath House Estate matches the boundary between St. Johns Parish (in pink) and Westgate Township (in yellow). Again, Bath Lane and Westgate Hill are named.
Google Earth shows the current view, the route between Bath Lane (highlighted with a blue dot) and Westgate Road (rather than Westgate Hill) is now intersected with St. James’ Boulevard; however, the ‘point’ where the two roads meet is still visible. Adjacent to this is part of the Roman defensive wall built.
Looking at the hand-drawn plans on various 19th century conveyances, it is amazing how often it is possible to match up an area of land to compare it to its modern usage. Why not have a look to see what other maps and plans you can find that show the changing use of this estate.