North Tyneside · Town
Wallsend
The town whose name says exactly what it is — where Hadrian's Wall met the sea, and later, one of the great shipbuilding names of the Tyne.
The end of the wall
Wallsend takes its name directly from its position at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The Roman fort of Segedunum stood here, and today it is the most excavated fort along the wall's entire length, with a reconstructed Roman bath house and a viewing tower looking down over the exposed foundations.
Wallsend's shipyard built RMS Carpathia, the liner that turned around in the middle of the North Atlantic and raced through the night to rescue Titanic's survivors in April 1912 — a quieter claim to fame than the record-breaking Mauretania, but no less remarkable.
Swan Hunter and the Mauretania
Shipbuilding on this stretch of the Tyne dates back to the 19th century. Swan Hunter, founded in 1880, merged with Wigham Richardson in 1903 specifically to win the contract to build Cunard's RMS Mauretania, launched at Wallsend in 1906 and holder of the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing for more than twenty years. The same yard built RMS Carpathia, which raced to rescue survivors of the Titanic in 1912, and, much later, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, before shipbuilding at Wallsend finally ended in 2006.
Turbines and a famous son
Just along the riverbank, engineer Charles Parsons built and tested his revolutionary steam turbine yacht Turbinia through the 1890s, stunning the Royal Navy with its speed in 1897. And in the mid-20th century, Wallsend produced a rather different kind of export: musician Sting, born Gordon Sumner, grew up within sight of the shipyard cranes he later sang about.
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Quick facts
- Borough
- North Tyneside
- Historic county
- Northumberland
- River
- Tyne (north bank)
- Known for
- Segedunum, Swan Hunter, Sting