Clickemin Nursery and the Origins of Fairney Edge

Before the Fairney Edge estate was built in 1980, the land had been used as a garden nursery called the Clickemin Nursery.

Market gardens played a big part in Ponteland's economy during the first half of the 20th century. Before supermarkets became common place in the 1970's most vegetables, flowers and English fruits were grown locally. If you were able to fly in the 1920's and '30's over small towns such as Ponteland and Morpeth which had good transport links to the big urban centre of Newcastle, you would have been astonished by how many large greenhouses you would see.

The growth in suburban housing which took place after the Second World War also meant there was a high demand for gardening plants. Many of the market gardens transitioned into garden supplies as the demand for locally produced fruit and vegetables declined.

Clickemin Nursey was opened in the 1950's along Bell Villas adjacent to Mayfair Gardens which was already in use as a market garden. Clickemin was owned by three business partners one of whom was Mathias (Pat) Johnsone. The offered trees, roses, shrubs, and bedding plants and in the 1970's, a feature which was very popular at that time, hanging baskets.

When Pat Johnsone died at the end of the 1970's, the land was sold to Atkinson and Cussins who built Fairney Edge and Fairney Close on it.