Whitley Bay Totally Explained

Everything about Whitley Bay totally explained

Whitley Bay is a town in North Tyneside, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the North Sea coast and boasts a fine stretch of beach of golden sand forming a bay stretching from St. Mary's Island in the north to Cullercoats in the south. The town, which has a population of about 35,000, became a holiday destination for the people of North East England and Scotland and remained popular in this regard until the 1980s. The town is now widely seen as a dormitory town for Newcastle upon Tyne.

Districts of Whitley Bay

History

The area is rich in history. Whitley was first mentioned about the year 1100 when King Henry I conferred it with other possessions on the Priory of Tynemouth being referred to in ancient documents and maps before that date as Witelei, Wyteley, Hwyteleg, Witelithe, Wheteley, Wytheleye, Whitlaw, Whitlathe and Whitlag. Whitley is also referred to in the charters of King Henry II, King Richard I and King John, confirming to the priors their possessions and liberties.
   Whitley was connected with the Crusades when Pope Nicholas IV granted to Edward I the first-fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical possessions for six years to defray the expenses of an expedition to the Holy Land. A valuation was made of the spiritual and temporal goods of the Priory on March 26th. 1292, when the yearly rents from Whitley were returned as 20 shillings, and the tithes as 9 marks.
   About the beginning of the 14th century, the manor of Whitley was held from the Prior of Tynemouth by a singular feudal service called the Conveyes which seems to have originated from John de Whitley. Richard de Emeldon, eighteen times Mayor of Newcastle and seven times its representative in Parliament, was the Lord of the Manor of Whitley in 1333.
   On 9th April 1345, Edward III granted to Gilbert de Whitley a licence to crenellate his manor house at Whitley. To crenallate a house was to place battlements upon it and before this could be done, the sanction of the Crown was necessary. The need was an indication of the insecurity felt even this far south during the Edwardian wars with Scotland.
   After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Whitley was held under the Crown for a time. By a grant of Edward VI dated 8th December 1551, it came into the hands of Dudley, Earl of Warwick who was created Duke of Northumberland. It remained in the Percy family until 1632 after which time the area appeared to be let at a yearly rental to various holders until it came into the possession of the Duke of Somerset on his marriage in 1682 with Elizabeth, the heiress of Joscelyn, the 11th Earl of Northumberland. Whitley subsequently passed by inheritance to her granddaughter Elizabeth Seymour who had married Sir Hugh Smithson, a Yorkshire baronet, afterwards created Duke of Northumberland. Whitley has since been retained by descendants and the present Duke of Northumberland is the Lord of the Manor and principal landowner. Monkseaton, which forms the greater part of the north west of the district is also very old and its industries were common with those of Whitley being chiefly coalmining and limestone quarrying. 1873 saw an event of importance in the town's history by the establishment of the Whitley and Monkseaton Local Board. The district of the Local Board became the Urban District of Whitley and Monkseaton. From the late-19th century and into the 20th century the adverse effects of the decline of local coalmining and dependent industries in the area were ameliorated by the emergence of Whitley as a seaside holiday resort. On the 1st of January 1944 the Whitley and Monkseaton Urban District became the Whitley Bay Urban District and on 5th March, 1954 it was granted its Royal Charter of Incorporation as the Borough of Whitley Bay. The charter was presented by HRH The Princess Royal at a ceremony in the town held on 14th of April 1954.
    - inventor of the windscreen wiper and former mayor

Alan Angus - former professional wrestler and actor

Michael Bridges - former Newcastle United and Sunderland player

Sid Drysdale - international bowls player - skippered the men's gold medal winning fours at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher also known as Colonel Rudolf Abel, Soviet superspy. See http://www.myersnorth.co.uk

Toby Flood - England rugby union international

John Gilroy - artist of Guinness advertisement fame

Robson Green - actor

Tom Hadaway - playwright

Paul Harvey - musician and Stuckist artist

W. E. Johns - author of Biggles (c. 1925)

Ian La Frenais - comedy writer, (The Likely Lads, Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet)

Graham Laws, Football League referee

Nick Martin - news correspondent, Channel 4 News - born and educated in Whitley Bay

John McLaughlin - guitarist for Miles Davis, and Mahavishnu Orchestra

John Middleton - actor (Emmerdale)

John O'Rourke - painter and sculptor

Peter Ramage - Newcastle United player. Also a former pupil at Whitley Bay High School

Lucy Ratcliffe - won the first series of the Living TV programme Britain's Next Top Model

Sid Smith writer

Laura Spence - schoolgirl at Monkseaton High School who was at the centre of a national political row about elitism in higher education in 2000 after being rejected by Oxford University

Andy Taylor - Duran Duran guitarist

Steven Taylor - Newcastle United player. Also a former pupil at Valley Gardens Middle School.

Hilton Valentine - The Animals - guitarist

Colin Watson - Detective novelist televised as series 'Murder Most English'. Lived for many years in Monkseaton.

Emily Hilda Young - novelist

Jimmy 'Tappy' Wright - Former road manager for The Animals,Tina Turner and Jimmy Hendrix

In Fiction

In the BBC children's television series Byker Grove, Dave Richmond, the leader of the rival youth club at Denwell Burn, was a local drug dealer from Whitley Bay. His trademark act of violence was the "Whitley Smile".

In the movie Purely Belter, Gerry's drug-addicted-sister Gemma is hiding out from her family at The Spanish City funfair in one of the waltzer cars on the Whitley Bay seafront.

Several episodes of the 1980s ITV television programme Supergran were filmed in Whitley Bay.

The 2006 BBC sitcom Thin Ice was filmed in the town and at Whitley Bay Ice Rink.

In comedy series 'The Fast Show', Paul Whitehouse can be seen in one sketch, walking through the Spanish City and along the seafront.

Spanish City is the title of a novel by the Tyneside-born author Sarah May. Although the novel is set in the fictional seaside town of Setton, this setting bears a number of striking resemblances to Whitley Bay, not least of which is the idea of a leisure complex named "Spanish City" that, after a period of relative prosperity in the mid-20th century, has fallen into disrepair. The novel begins when an elderly teacher is kidnapped by disgruntled ex-pupils. The rest of the novel is narrated mainly in flashback.

There are numerous references to Whitley Bay in the 1970s sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?. The series was set in North-East England, and was written by Dick Clement and locally-born Ian La Frenais.

The song Chop That Child In Half by post-punk band The Mekons includes a reference to "the memory of a beach-hut in Whitley Bay".

The music video for First Time I Ever Saw Your Face by duo Journey South was filmed along the beach and seafront in Whitley Bay.

In The Catherine Tate Show, Geordie Georgie tries to get her co-worker Martin to sponsor her and her friends to pull a Boeing 747 from Whitley Bay to Tynemouth using only the B roads, for all the little folk in the north east area who suffer from sex addiction.Further Information

Get more info on 'Whitley Bay'.

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