Worsdell House

Built for the North Eastern Railway’s Gateshead Literary Institute, which moved into new premises here on Hudson Street in 1889: an educational institute for the company’s workmen, founded in 1854, with Science and Art and technical classes and a library that grew to 12,000 volumes. Sir Vincent Raven, the works’ future Chief Mechanical Engineer, was involved with it from the 1880s until he retired (see the Raven trail). The building later became the Gateshead Railway Club, and was converted by Adderstone in 2007.

The Hudson Street side, where the Literary Institute moved in 1889. September 2026.

The conversion added mezzanines, a new third floor and a new roof with a fourth floor above it, and restored the outside with replica timber sash windows, repaired brick and stonework and a Welsh slate roof. Flats 1–10 have their own door on Wellington Street, signed “Worsdell House Flats 1–10” with Horizon Management’s plate beside it. Flats 11–25 have Hudson Street addresses in the council’s register (NE8 2AB), against NE8 2AJ for 1–10. The stone-framed panelled door on Half Moon Lane that still carries the old street numbers 40 and 42 is not a Worsdell House entrance: it serves six separate flats, numbered 1–6 Half Moon Lane, in an unnamed building that looks to have been built about 20 years ago to fill the gap between Wellington House and Worsdell House (Andy, on the ground, October 2026). Nor is Worsdell House part of Half Moon at 30 Half Moon Lane, another Adderstone scheme. With three sets of flats numbered from 1 within a few yards, give couriers the building name and the street as well as the flat number.

The Wellington Street door for flats 1–10, with the managing agent’s plate. September 2026.

The Hudson Street side is a four-storey red-brick building with tall arched windows on its lower floors and paired windows above, closer to a works or warehouse than a house. The curved-corner building at Half Moon Lane, with Bridgewater’s shopfronts, is not part of Worsdell House: it is Wellington House, a separate Grade II listed building.

The ground floor on Wellington Street is let as commercial units, on the odd-numbered side opposite the railway arches (1–7, Bridgewater Interiors, is next door in Wellington House):

Number	Occupant
9–11	Sereniti Health
15	Kings Church Gateshead, opening late 2026

The Railway Club itself carried on in the ground floor at 15 Wellington Street after the 2007 conversion, for a time opening its bar to the public as well as to members. That pub side closed on 2 March 2018 and it went back to being a members’ club; CAMRA now lists it as closed long-term, and its rooms stood empty until Kings Church took them on. The council’s information board by the MacCoy Fountain, from around 2010, still describes the club as open.

Flats are let through Exchange Residential among others; the building is a right-to-manage block, with Horizon Block Management as managing agent (Companies House 11006638, registered in Sheffield). Horizon’s plate at the door gives hello@horizonmanagement.co.uk and 0300 030 1035.