Ouseburn, Newcastle
Ouseburn Cattle Sanatorium
Last Updated:
21 Oct 2024
Ouseburn, Newcastle
This is a
Livestock Sanatorium
54.972460, -1.590103
Founded in
Current status is
Demolished
Designer (if known):
Now redeveloped with private housing
It’s not that long ago this place was on its last legs - heavily polluted, ruined and forlorn. The mouth of the Ouseburn provided a decent place to hold cattle and sheep, as they could be shunted off the ships straight to this site and later be transported into the city or further afar.
The Cattle Sanatorium, located on the site of the new build apartments, was constructed in 1877 as a quarantine for livestock shipped from abroad. Most of the imports into Lower Steenbergs Yard came from Scandinavia, and the riverside was composed of wharves for each of the main ports - Malmo, Hamburg, Norway etc. Once unloaded here, they made their way to the yard via that little tunnel near the Glasshouse Bridge.
It held up to 3000 sheep and 600 cattle at once, all being checked they were free from disease before being released onto the British market for consumption. Newcastle was one of the main importers of Scandinavian meats through the 19th and 20th century so it made an important trading centre, and is partly why a Danish Seamen’s chapel ended up next door.
It continued operating for a few decades but was later repurposed as a warehouse and oil works, as well as partly becoming the Maynards Toffee Factory. It was mostly demolished in the 2000s but there were still fragments through the 2010s until it was fully cleared for these apartments.
Listing Description (if available)
The Ordnance Survey maps shown illustrate the Ouseburn area between the 1890s and 1910s, well after this part of Newcastle densely industrialised. We can see every nook and cranny of the area is teeming with life, with the Sanatorium taking up one side of the burn and a confectionary & glassworks on the other. In fact, some of the kilns can still be seen of the old glass works when walking past the apartments. The area still had a ton of housing at this time too, with (at least) mid 19th century housing taking up the south side of Ouse Street.
The changes are minor through the decades difference. Millers Hill, previously the site of a windmill, features the Tyne Tees Shipping offices from the 1900s. The Ouseburn Iron Works was defunct by the 1910s, despite the site having huge significance in the development of steam engines. A double bogey locomotive was constructed here for the Lambton Railway in the early 1810s, and colliery winding engines were also developed here.
We're winding back the clock to 1864 now. The 6 inch map features little labelling or detailed illustrations, however we'll notice that the Ouseburn was still heavily industrialised even this early. The Sanatorium site was already built upon, though I can't say what it was exactly that was here. It was a possible earthenware manufacturers, or a large warehouses for T Robson.
The Ouseburn and Sanatorium site in September 2024
The Quayside entrance to Steenberg's Yard still preserved near the Glasshouse Bridge
The Sanatorium site, by this time a warehouse, in 1943. Source: Historic England Archive (RAF photography) raf_1cu_16000_o_16786 flown 23 August 1943