Fagans Nursery and the Estate Rules

The Darras Hall Estate was founded by the Northern Allotments Society in 1907. They drew up detailed regulations on the types of houses which could be built on the estate and had strict rules about what commercial activities were permitted, covering almost anything which could annoy the neighbours. One of the exceptions (hardly surprising, given the name of the organisation) was market gardens and plant nurseries. Although all the plots on the estate were sold in 1911, it would take another fifty years before these would all be developed for housing. In the meantime, the near empty estate was dotted with large greenhouses and market gardens.

The first mention of one here in local newspapers is in 1934. By the 1950’s it was being run by the Fagan family who had a stall in the Green Market in Newcastle. Their main crops were tomatoes, cucumbers, chrysanthemums, sweet peas and bedding plants.

The building of Meadow Court in the late 1960’s meant the site was becoming increasingly isolated as a non-residential site with houses being built all around it. At the end of the 1990’s plots on the site were gradually disposed of but the business continued in operation until 2018 when the remaining greenhouses were demolished and the remainder of the site developed for housing as an extension to Meadow Court.

The type of house built on this site are very indicative of the changes which have occurred at the upper end of the housing market in the last twenty years. Luxury properties have always been associated with status however until fairly recently, this was kept relatively concealed.

In a trend which probably dated from the more socially equitable days of the Second World War when everyone was “in-it-together” there was a stigma attached to conspicuous consumption. If you were wealthy, you wanted your friends and family to know about it, but you did not want every “Tom, Dick and Harry” to be aware how much money you had. Large houses were concealed up long driveways, or in a suburban context hidden behind large hedges. This trend still prevails in the older, more established areas of Darras Hall where almost every house is completely obscured by enormous hedges which line the roads.

Here the houses are very much more on display. Celebrity culture and “aspirational living” promoted through magazines, T.V. and social media mean that the bigger the house, the better. They have normalised conspicuous displays of wealth, literally so with one of the latest houses in this group which has a floor to roof level constructed out of glass.