Summer Memories Of Picktree Village

A Memory of Picktree.

In the late 1950’s and as a young boy around 8 or 9 living in the west end of Newcastle, I used to visit my Auntie Bella and Uncle Ted regularly. They lived at Number 3 Picktree Cottages, a short row of picturesque cottages now demolished and replaced with the bungalows on Picktree Lane situated almost opposite the entrance to the present Ash Meadows.
Uncle Ted worked for a Mr Walton who had a butchers business and lived in Rickleton House, a very large house and gardens off Bonemill Lane leading towards Fatfield village. Uncle Ted drove a butchers horse and cart around the area selling meat. Mr Walton also had a shop at Bridge End, Chester le Street and strangely owned a lion which I saw many times when riding on my Uncles cart at the end of his day’s butchers round returning to Rickleton House to let the horse loose on a field after its days toil. The Lion was kept in a large cage near the house and could be seen occasionally wandering around the grounds near the house tethered to a lead. My Aunt’s surname was Oswald and they had three grown sons, one of whom Ronnie owned a Food Store on the North Lodge estate in Birtley.
I used to visit my Aunt’s regularly during school holidays travelling on my own getting the bus from Worswick Street Bus Station in Newcastle either the number 75 which dropped me off at the top of Picktree Lane at its junction with the A1. I then would walk the few hundred yards down the lane to the cottage or alternatively I would take the bus via Birtley and walk through the North Lodge estate, to Picktree which required crossing the A1, then a relatively quiet dual carriageway.
I really enjoyed my stays at Picktree, and look back with great fondness all these years later. The clean air of the countryside away from the dirt and grime of Tyneside. Playing endlessly in the large garden at the rear of the cottage, long walks through the Lambton estate and occasional days out riding the horse and cart of my Uncles butchers meat round, thinking I was driving the horse when in fact the horse knew the round so well it was driving itself.
My Aunt often reminisced of the time she was sitting outside the cottage with her sister, later my mother on a hot sunny summer’s afternoon shortly after the war when the Royal Family came past. They were out for a Sunday stroll staying at the nearby Lambton Castle as guests of Lord Lambton. There was George VI, his wife Elizabeth later the Queen Mother and their daughters Princess Elizabeth, our present day Queen and her sister Princess Margaret. They stayed a while chatting while the princesses played with my Aunt’s two dogs.
I would very much appreciate any copies of photographs of the area circa 1950’s/60’s - benhaddon@yahoo.co.uk

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