Jarrow Town

Jarrow sits on the south bank of the River Tyne in South Tyneside. The town grew around the 7th-century monastery at St Paul’s, founded by Benedict Biscop, where the Venerable Bede lived and composed his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Jarrow Hall houses displays about the monastery and a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon farm that interprets daily life from Bede’s era, and fragments of carved stone and grave markers from the original priory are on view. The riverside location shaped settlement and trade for centuries.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries Jarrow became a centre for shipbuilding and heavy engineering; Palmer’s yard dominated local employment and its closure helped precipitate the 1936 Jarrow March to London. Today the town centre retains terraces, civic buildings and community spaces alongside modern shops and services, with Jarrow Metro station linking to the Tyne and Wear network. Jarrow Dene provides a valley of trees and a stream for walking, and local groups stage events that reference the town’s industrial and monastic past.