Wearmouth Green

Historically, the old part of Bishopwearmouth was a village focused around Wearmouth Green and the Sunderland Minster which was formerly the church of St Michael and All Angels. It was in this area of Sunderland that a number of old routeways into the town converged.

South Wearmouth, as Bishopwearmouth was originally called, came into being in Anglo-Saxon times when it encompassed lands stretching south as far as Seaham and Hesleden. The lands were given to the Community of St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street around 830-846AD.

The lands were then seized in 918 AD by the Dublin-based Viking ruler, Ragnald who gave them to his follower, Olaf Ball. They were later returned to the Bishops of Chester-le-Street (predecessors of the Bishops of Durham) by Athelstan, King of England in 934AD. Athelstan described the lands as “my beloved vill of South Wearmouth” Through its association with the Bishops of Durham, South Wearmouth became ‘Bishopwearmouth’.

Bishopwearmouth was a rather sleepy rural settlement at the time of the Boldon Book (1183) and retained its village-like appearance for centuries. You still get that feel today south of Sunderland Minster where the church still overlooks the village green.
Mowbray Almshouses, Sunderland
Mowbray Almshouses, Sunderland. Photo David Simpson

The green is bordered by neat cottage-like buildings in Church Lane and the rustic looking Mowbray Almshouses of 1863. The almshouses were originally founded in 1727 when Jane Gibson, widow of a Sunderland merchant made a bequest for “an hospital or almshouse, erected and endowed for the maintenance of 12 poor men or women”. The fund for the almshouses was administered by a notable Sunderland family called the Mowbrays, who rebuilt the almshouses in 1863. The green itself has long been common land and in less enlightened times was used as a venue for bull baiting.

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