Jarrow

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Jarrow

Jarrow is a town on the River Tyne, England with a population around 27,000 (2001 Census). It is part of the South Tyneside district of Tyne and Wear.

History and Naming

There was a Roman fort on the site in the 1st century, and it was also occupied by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century. The town derives its name from its Anglo-Saxon name "Gyrwe" (pronounced Yeerweh), which means marsh or fen.

The Monastery of Saint Paul in Jarrow was once the home of the Venerable Bede, whose most notable works include The Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the translation of the Gospel of John into Old English. At the time of its foundation, it was reputed to have been the only centre of learning in Europe north of Rome. In 794 Jarrow became the second target in England of the Vikings, who had plundered Lindisfarne in 793. The Monastery was later dissolved by Henry VIII. The ruins of the Monastery are now associated with and partly built into the present-day church of St. Paul, which stands on the site. One wall of the church contains the oldest stained-glass window in the world, dating from about AD 600. Not far from the Monastery is "Bede's World", a working museum dedicated to the life and times of Bede.

Jarrow remained a small town until the introduction of heavy industries like coal mining and shipbuilding. Charles Mark Palmer established a shipyard - Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited - here in 1852 and became the first armour-plate manufacturer in the world. John Bowes, the first iron screw collier, revived the Tyne coal trade, and Palmers was also responsible for the first modern cargo ship, as well as a number of notable warships.

Palmers employed as much as 80% of the town's working population until its closure in the early 1930s following intervention by the Conservative government. Around 1,000 ships were built at the yard. As from 1935, Olympic, the sister ship of RMS Titanic, was partially demolished at Jarrow (in 1937 she was towed to Inverkeithing, Scotland for final scrapping). The closure of the shipyard was responsible for one of the events for which Jarrow is most famous. Jarrow is marked in history as the starting point of the Jarrow Crusade (to London) to protest against unemployment in Britain in 1936. Jarrow MP Ellen Wilkinson wrote about these events in her book The Town That Was Murdered (1939).

Famous former residents of the town, including Ellen Wilkinson MP, Charles Mark Palmer and William Jobling have been remembered in the names of beers produced by Jarrow Brewing Company, a microbrewery in the town.

Twin Towns

Jarrow is twinned with the following towns, under the umbrella of the South Tyneside town-twinning project which saw individual twinning projects brought together in 1974:

Wuppertal in Germany, originally twinned with South Shields in 1951.

Noisy-le-Sec in France, originally twinned with Hebburn in April 1963.

Épinay-sur-Seine in France, originally twinned with Jarrow in June 1965.

Famous Jarrow residents

Bede, Benedictine monk and scholar.
Steve Cram, Olympic Athlete.
Jarrow Elvis, Elvis impersonator.
Peter Flannery, playwright.
Alan Price, musician. Alan was born in Washington and brought up in Jarrow.
William Goat, awarded the Victoria Cross.
Stephen Hepburn, politician.
William Jobling, last man to be gibbeted in Britain.
L.S. Lowry, the well-known artist spent time in Jarrow in 1964.
John Miles, rock musician, singer, songwriter.
Fergus Montgomery, Conservative MP.
Charles Mark Palmer, shipbuilder.
Alan Plater, writer
Patrick Stewart, Star Trek actor, spent the majority of his childhood living in Jarrow, although was not born here
Paul Thompson, rock musician, drummer of Roxy Music.
Ellen Wilkinson, Labour MP and Jarrow March organiser.
Sir Frank Williams, Formula 1 supremo, was born and brought up in Jarrow.
Wee Georgie Wood, music hall star

Transport

Road

Jarrow is reached from the south by the A1(M) via the A194, and is connected to North Tyneside and Northumberland via the Tyne Tunnel.

Metro

Jarrow is served by stations on both the Tyne and Wear Metro Yellow line stations, accessible from the station near the town centre, and the Tyne and Wear Metro Green line stations at Fellgate to the south.

Air

The nearest major airport is Newcastle Airport, about 10 miles away.

Trivia

Jarrow is the setting in Monty Python's Flying Circus where the Spanish Inquisition first appears. Interestingly though, in the sketch the unintelligible accent Graham Chapman uses to explain the "trouble at mill" is more akin to that of someone from Yorkshire.
J.M.W. Turner, the great artist, was rowed out into Jarrow Slake in 1835 to paint his picture Keelmen Hauling Coals by Moonlight, which is now in Washington D.C.

External Links

Towns in Tyne and Wear | Anglo-Saxon England | History of Northumberland

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