10 Darras Road: First House on the Estate

The first two houses built on the Darras Hall Estate were erected on the north east corner nearest the village on a plot of land now opposite the Ponteland Memorial Hall. These are now known as No.10 and No.12 Darras Road, but these originally were the main house and gardener’s cottage.

The land which became the Darras Hall Estate was purchased by consortium led by Joseph Whiteside Wakinshaw in 1907. Roads and services were laid and the land divided into 185 development plots each of five acres which auctioned off in 1911. On the map drawn up with the purchasers’ names and prices, this plot, Plot 1. Is shown as being purchased for £150 by Miss J. Wakinshaw. Jane Elizabeth Wakinshaw was one of Joseph Wakinshaw’s two unmarried sisters who lived with him in the house they shared, Runnymede at Westerhope.

The estate did not really develop until after the Second World War but the 1913 Ordnance Survey Map shows these two houses as being the first built on the estate. They are both a good example of Arts and Crafts Cottages which was a popular architectural form at that time and in keeping with the character of Joseph Wakinshaw and his sisters. It was a reaction against industrial mass production, empathising craftsmanship, simplicity, and the use of natural materials. Inspired by the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris, it sought to reunite art with craft and promote the dignity of labour in everyday objects and architecture. Their scale and simplicity are in sharp contrast to many of the other houses in what is now the most expensive estate in the North East.

The house is generally said to have been built for Miss Wakinshaw but the 1921 census Miss Wakinshaw is still living with her unmarried brother in their Westerhope house. He died in 1926, so there is the possibility that she came to live here after his death but there is no mention of her living here in local newspapers.