South Shields Sanddancers Forum

can anybody tell me anything about the sanitorium at cleadon - was it just for those with tb?

As far as I know thats what it was for. In the 60s a girl from my street was admitted there with tb, she made a full recovery after her stay there.

When TB became less of a problem due to vaccination and better treatment the Cleadon sanitorium got used for other purposes. I think mainly for people who were terminally ill. My dad died there in 1976 of lung cancer. He was initially treated at the Ingham Infirmary but was moved to the Sanitorium for his final few weeks.

maybe before my time,but can i ask is it[the building]still standing and where is/was it?

It was demolished and replaced by a housing development Parkshiel/Brandling Court.

Exert from the Saturday Letters in the shields Gazzette at the time of closure.

This years Xmas cards on sale at the library have a picture of the old house that became Cleadon Sanitorium.

the gates are still there today hidden in a back garden

The front steps are there also, on the round-a-bout, which was a feature of the buildings approach.

About 40 years ago, we used to walk past this building on our way to Cleadon Park junior school in Park Avenue.

In those days, the main building looked exactly as it does in the newspaper article but the new houses were not there as they were built much later.

The funny thing is that as young children (and like a lot of kids that age), our over worked imagination had somehow convinced us that this place was a lunatic asylum and a place of great fear.

As we got closer and closer to the building we would be scared sh**less that someone would see us and we would be captured, taken prisoner and most likely never seen again. On a few occasions, we would hear a car or van start up and we just knew we had been spotted and we would not be going to school that day or indeed any other day. And so we would hide behind trees or bushes until the 'guards' drove past...........looking for us.

Anyone remember the tv series The Fugitive ? well, that was us......always on the run..........past this dark and very secretive building.

On the dark mornings when walking to school, if we saw a curtain move or heard voices, that would definitely get the heart beating faster and this would continue all the way until we reached the relative safety of Sunderland Road. After that, Park Avenue was a walk in the park (so to speak) and we only had to run the gaunlet of getting past Ashgrove Avenue and somehow survive the school bullys in the school yard before the bell would ring and everything would be ok in the classroom. Until of course, having to go through it all again 'in reverse' as we went home.

The thrills of childhood and the over worked imagination !!!

The thrills of childhood and the over worked imagination !!!
enjoyed your story Mal .. =D>
.
I think its sad a building like that should be demolished ...my dream would be to re-furbish something like that ,,and live in it ..

when i was a kid used to deliver papers for a paper shop on the corner of park avenue ( ? back in 73). The owner on a sunday would get me to go up to the sanitorium to at cleadon park to sell papers to the patients in there. I guess they were TB patients back then, the patients would wait for me coming and would be ready with a list of tabs that they wanted to get them from the shop mostly woodbines and capstan full strength. A few months later the shop owner was asked to stop the sale of papers at the sanitorium by the medical staff could never figure out why, suppose when you are young and daft (about 13) you dont know the damage you are doing. from what i can remember the inside of the place was pretty impressive.

the gatehouse is the house that is on the main pathway through the park now a private house

Here is a photograph of the staff of the Sanatorium circa 1976.



This is the retirement of the Matron seen here in the middle holding the flowers.
Their names from left to right:
Mona Duffy - Jane Robson - Nancy o'Mara - ? - The Matron - ? - Mrs. Pearce - ? - Anne Diamond - Joy Finley.

great photo

What was the name of the shop that was across the road from the enterance?

just down from the entrance of the sanitorium back in 1971 was the park avenue shops, the only two i remember were the dairy, and ? carricks the paper shop

isomache wrote:just down from the entrance of the sanitorium back in 1971 was the park avenue shops, the only two i remember were the dairy, and ? carricks the paper shop

Went past Park Avenue today and was surprised to see the shops have been demolished.

Park avenue shops were demolished i think earlier this year to make way for new houses, end of a era got my first paper round there 66 papers in the morning, ashgrove, park ave, laburnam, the crescent etc, and three papers at night sanitorium, girls high school [think now its a newly built school top of king george road] one paper right in cleadon village elmsleigh gdns.
Some walk on a night time.