Jarrow Hall Museum is named after the Georgian house on our site. The house is located opposite the main museum and was built around 1785 by local businessman Simon Temple who made a lot of his wealth pursuing shipbuilding and glassmaking interests in South Shields. He opened the Alfred Pit at Jarrow Colliery in 1803, and built rows of miner’s cottages nearby, next to St Paul’s Church, as well as along the west road of Jarrow Hall. He also founded other institutions, including a school. Temple would later become bankrupt due to poor investments.
The building changed hands several times throughout the 20th century before becoming the original Bede Monastery Museum in 1974, a museum to hold the excavated material from St. Paul’s Church, Jarrow Monastery.
We hold and care for a small collection of social history items that relate to the Hall, including some personal items and photographs relating to its former residents. We also hold some items of local historical significance.
Some highlights from the social history collection include:
• Furniture crafted by Thomas and Helen Brady.
• Photographs of residents and their family.
• Prints from the Bede Gallery, by Vince Rea.
• Some personal belongings of Isabella Drewett, including a sketchbook and her fishnet purse.
• Childhood toys of Drewett Ormande Drewett.
• Wooden Toys from Catharine Chaytor’s Jarrow Toys.
Our friends at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, have further collections relating to South Tyneside Social History, be sure to also check them out here (link to South Shields Museum & Art Gallery).
Coming Soon…
More from our social history collection.
