This stunner of a brick building is slyly concealed by its side extension on City Road. This one is just up the bank from the Glasshouse Bridge, near St Ann’s Church.

This is the beautiful Ouseburn Mission House, a branch of the wider town mission whose aim was to enrich the growing community with worship as well as material support. The mission would send over clergymen for services to bat away the forces of “evil” - you know, gambling and drinking and such where such problems were identified. The missionaries would conduct services, provide a Sunday school, sewing classes, mothers meetings and evening schools here but also visit places of work as well as the home to “spiritually uplift”. Very “of the time” and a little bit condescending, but no doubt there were areas their support was beneficial.

Our building dates back to the late 1860s. They were previously using a room connected to a pub at the Brown Jug Yard on Stepney Bank (then known as Pottery Bank). It quickly outgrow the accommodation as the population around here boomed - principally of mechanics and general labourers, and as a result a full purpose built premises were required to continue their divine remit.

Mr Thomas Oliver was commissioned to design it. He was the son of the great man with the same name who was a pupil of John Dobson, but our man deserves credit in his own right having designed many of the villas across Jesmond, Cullercoats etc. Altogether it cost around £900 and had room to seat 250.

It does make me laugh, cos most people know this place as the house the inventor of the windscreen wiper lived on. He’s attributed on the blue plaque on my pic below, but never actually lived here - he lived in a row up the road! It was later used by Marfac Ltd - an iron merchants as well as a garage.