The area between the River Don and the River Tyne in 1953 and 2021. The blue patch corresponds to the area that nowadays hosts the Jarrow Hall Anglo-Saxon Farm, Village and Bede Museum. © Historic England & Google Earth.
In the same decades, the exponential population growth caused by the increasing demands of industrial workforce in Jarrow resulted in massive housing. From the 1920s onwards, these dynamics deeply transformed the landscape of the area to the south of St Paul’s monastery.
The construction of houses for workers and their families became more intense during the decades immediately following the Second World War, when steelwork manufacturing was at its peak in the Tyneside. Afterwards, the landscape of Jarrow continued to be profoundly transformed by large-scale industrial production. For instance, huge oil storage tanks were built in the mid-20th century over a wide area between Jarrow Hall House, the River Don and the River Tyne. Some of the tanks still exist in the western part of this area.
The following decade leads us back to the foundation of the local Museum in Jarrow. As already mentioned, archaeological excavations began at St Paul’s monastery in 1963 and their exceptional results led to the establishment of the “Bede’s World Museum”, which can be considered as the first core of our Museum. It was opened in 1974 in the Jarrow Hall House, which had just been refurbished, and its primary aim was to make available to the public the archaeological findings from the site of St Paul’s monastery. In 1979, the Museum hosted a new exhibition on the excavations at St Paul, and its name was changed to “Bede Monastery Museum”.
Virtual Museum | Jarrow and its Museum | The excavations at St Pauls and the new local Museum | The monastery and the medieval landscape | Jarrow and the Industrial Revolution | Modern Jarrow | Jarrow in the first half of the 20th century | Jarrow across the 20th century | Jarrow in the late 20th century | The new local Museum and Gyrwe’s farm
