From West Farm to Waitrose

The supermarket that is currently Waitrose's is built on the site of a garage which in turn was built on the site of a demolished farm. Because of its central position, it is important because it has a big impact on the look and feel of Ponteland, so I want to cover its three different uses over the next three days, starting off with its original use as a farm.

The farm was West Farm, but was more commonly known as Straughan's after the family which ran it. This was the only farm in the village itself and it lasted until the 1950's. There was a West Farm listed in the manor of Ponteland in 1717 which probably referred to this farm. Like almost all farms in this part of Northumberland it was a tenanted farm meaning it was owned by a wealthy landowner and let to professional farmers. There is a register from 1842 showing the owner to be Matthias William Dunn who was a coal owner and onetime mayor of Newcastle. The tenant then was a John Burt.

The main farmhouse faced the road and was flanked either side by an old cottage on one side and a barn on the other. The farmyard was to the rear and contained a round gingang, a horse driven engine used for threshing hay. It looks to have been primarily a dairy farm and older residents remember cows being driven down the road to it.

In the 1870's, the farm was owned by the Salvin family who were based at Burn Hall in County Durham, a magnificent country house. It was then said to consist of 140 acres, 50 acres of which being good, permanent grass. In the latter part of the 1800's it was tenanted first of all by William P. Alder who employed 4 boys and 4 labourers at the farm. On his death, he was succeeded by his son, George Richard Alder.

In a 1910 trade directory William Reed was listed as farmer but by the 1911 census, the farm had begun its long association with the Straughan family. The farmer was then William Bowring but he lived in the eight-room farmhouse with his sister and her family who were the Straughan's. They took over that farm after William's death and look to have been then until it closed down in the 1950's.

The 1950's was a period of strong growth in Ponteland and a village centre farm such as West Farm became increasingly untenable as housing developments encroached on its land and increasing traffic made moving livestock what were now busy roads very difficult. The land on which the farm stood was much more valuable as commercial land than it was as agricultural land. The site was sold to a garage firm which had stood opposite; The Ponteland Motor Car Company Ltd. They redeveloped the site with a modern garage forecourt apparently incorporating stone from the old farm into the modern buildings.