Duncans buildings.
 

I have, for some reason, known Duncans buildings or Duncans cottages to be directly behind your "red brick buildings" at the top of the Wynd. There is only one of these cottages left now, used for storage and it is adjoined to the bigger house next door that may have been one of the farmhouses at one time. There seems to have been a row of them from the bottom of Greenfield Terrace to Gibson street.

And that row of cottages fits nicely with the number on the census return, and also logically how they have listed them; Gibson Street ----around the corner to----Duncans Buildings ----and around the corner to ----Greenfield Terrace.

The 1881 census shows DONKINS Cottages (4) between Greenfield Terrace and Gibson Street. The 1891 has them as DUNCAN'S Cottages The later censuses have DUNCAN'S Buildings in the same spot :(

"Donkin's" is just "Duncan's" in a healthy Amble accent. Just an error I would say Janwin ? :D

I can go with that one but I'm not sure that well known auction family of Donkin would have been impressed:)

I've tapped into my sister's cerebral silver mine about the arch and dwellings opposite Lambs Terrace but her seams are about as played out as mine :D

Anyway, a passageway ran down the side of the Bluebell. On the pub side there was a side entry to let you get your jug of ale without anybody being any the wiser in the pub and on the other there were a few flats. This is the 1950s, Mr Hume (of Cac fame) lived there as did the Douglas family with the Goldsteins upstairs.

She also reckons there was a blacksmith's up Acklington Street, above the Masons. Me, being so much younger, can't remember that one.

re Donkin
 

I'm playing the 'spring chicken' card to cover my ignorance too. :D We've had a few auctioneers in Amble I think? Might be a business model to consider again in these recessionary times?


I remember Cac Hume clearly though. According to my mother I was a sickly child and one day Dr. Robertson came on a home visit. I had a plastic model of General Custer by the bedside and the doctor asked "is that General Custer?" "No No!" I indignantly replied, "it's Cac Hume!"

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...buildings3.jpg

Do we have any information on the building at the end of Gibson Street - That must have been demolished and is now a public space with a seat & rose garden ? The original building was the biggest in Gibson Street - wonder if it had anything to do with the auctioneer? - or was it just a large house?

Acklington Street or Road?
1897
A few buildings on the road that could be candidates. All now gone whatever they were. Looks like an orchard or something there too. The Steet is not yet built on this map.

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...ngton_road.jpg

Were the closets for Marks Row on the other side of the road? :eek:

I don't think Dr Robertson would have been impressed with your response...he wasn't much taken with sick note charlies!

Water closets on Marks Row were definitely before my time. Still I don't think there would have been any danger of being mown down by Craiggs' bus in those days :D

Properties on Albert and Woodbine Streets.
 

1: There were flats in what is now the car park behind the Blue Bell and there was a shop, empty in my time,on the corner of the roadside, car sales now. This is also where there was a pub too at one time. Cliffwell garage was Thompsons Red Stamp Stores, I started there in 1956 as a 13 year old delivery boy, after school each evening and Saturdays, for 10s per week. They moved down to Queen Street in 1957 and I left school in 1958.
2: The blacksmiths shop was in the bungalow which stands at the entrance to Hope Terrace, before the block of two semis, it belonged to a Mr Pickard , Michael Howlistons grandfather, and Michaels mother had it made into it's present state after the blacksmithing finished.
3: The site on the corner of Gibson Street was originally a lodging house which was burnt down in the 1890's early 1900's leaving an open space which never seems to have been utilised.

Now my sister did mention Thompsons being there and then changed her mind. She will be pleased. I can only remember it as a long narrow shop down Queen Street. My friend's cousin worked there, Betty Clark. She also mentioned something about a kind of tank on the Cliffwell site that was drained and a goldfish was found in the bottom :D

fascinating stuff as ever guys.
The Gibson Street building that burnt down; I see the west facing wall has survived, and in now incorporated into the gable end of the neighbouring building.
I wonder if the conflagration gets a mention in the papers? (janwin , hint hint :) )


On the subject of the "Gibson" that gave his name to Gibson Street - this must be a diffrerent Gibson to the town surveyor commemorated at the west cemetery, as his active period seems to post date the "Gibson Street" name considerably?

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...t_cemetery.jpg



http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...e_surveyor.jpg

the 4 panels.

si monumentum requiris circumspice = "Latin for 'If you seek a monument, look around you', from the epitaph on Christopher Wren's tomb at St. Paul's Cathedral" ...nice.



Gibson's grave is a few metres from the fountain (above)
Died aged 77, September 23 1913


http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...bson_grave.jpg

Gable wall.
 

I too noticed the stone gable wall there yesterday. Looks unusual to have a stone wall on brick houses, seems to bear out the story of a previous building next door.

Maybe we shouldn't remind the council it's a brownfield site, they'll sell if off to build a block of flats on it :D

Definitely from the other building though, the stones on the face are angled differently to the red brick houses.

I can always respond to subtlety :) Ok I'm looking, but while I am, here's one, Morpeth Herald 11 March 1905: "For sale by private treaty, Gloster House, Amble, containing 7 rooms, and two tenemented houses of 4 and 3 rooms respectively. The property forms a corner site, being situated partly in High Street and Gibson Street. For further particulars apply to John Henderson, Railway Row, Broomhill."

That must be it, as the one at the other side was known as 'Sunlight House'

While we're on the subject of Gibson Street, here's a letter written by my G-G-Grandfather George Anthony Richardson (adopted by the Browns of Brown the plumber fame) The gentleman is pictured in another thread in his later years in Panhaven Road:


G.A. Richardson. Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Ironmongers and Tin-Plate Workers, etc.
No. 12 and 14 Queen Street, Amble.

To the Chairman & Members of the Amble District Council.

Gentlemen,

My Child having died from Diphtheria I am certain contracted through the insanitary conditions of the earth closets of the Gibson St. School - having examined the E.C.s myself I found them to be in a very unsanitary condition there being no ventilation in the roofs, & nothing but liquid filth in the boxes. There being no deodoriser put in such as ashes or lifted peat moss the smell from the closets would kill a horse, let alone a human being; & also the school itself, there does not seem to be any ventilation to the sides of the school or fresh air inlets such as lobentubes [?] to stand about 3ft above the children’s heads.
Your immediate attention to the above will oblige
Yours respectfully
G.A. Richardson.


The date is uncertain from the document, apart from '189x', but cross referencing to the east cemetery burial list, the dead child in question is
almost certainly Elizabeth Richardson aged 7 died 5th June 1895.

Burials have Elizabeth Richardson, aged 7, daughter of G A Richardson of Queen Street. The toilets sound choice :rolleyes: