12 and 14 Main Street: The Doctor's House

Numbers 12 and 14 on the Main Street form one of the most attractive small blocks of old houses remaining in Ponteland. They have not always stood alone. Until 1964 they stood at the end of a small row of old cottages but these were demolished to make way for the building of Merton Hall.

Unfortunately, almost nothing has been published about the house’s history, and what has been published is confusing.

The official listing describes them as a Farmhouse and hind’s cottage. There was a farm, West Farm which stood directly opposite the houses on the land now occupied by Waitrose. However, that had its own farmhouse. A plan of the village prepared for the Merton Estate dating from 1802 does not appear to show the houses. The Tithe Map of 1846 shows two separate houses with the carriageway not yet built over, but they are clearly shown in their present form on first Ordnance Survey Map dating from 1859.

These buildings here may have been associated with the farm but bricks were hand-made and expensive at the beginning of the 19th century when these houses were built. Normally brick work was associated with higher status houses in this period. It would be very unusual for a hind, which was the description of a farm labourer, to be accommodated in a two-storied brick-built house of this quality in this period.

The house is generally referred to as Neasham House, but even this is confusing. The best source regarding Ponteland’s local history is PONTELAND – One Thousand Years of History. In the text, it refers to it as Neasham House but on an annotated map it is marked as Nesham House. Searching through the archives of historical local newspapers, there is no reference to a Neasham House in Ponteland but there is one published in 1938 about Nesham House.

One Thousand Years of History also refers to the house as the Doctor’s House. This does seem a lot more reasonable for a house of this size and quality. Unfortunately, no detail is provided regarding which doctors lived here or when.

Whoever built or lived in them, the houses remain some of the most attractive in Ponteland and add a lot to the quality of its High Street.