Washington (England)

Washington is a town in Tyne and Wear in the northeast of England. It was a small mining village but from 1964 became the core of a planned New Town, with a population of over 67,000 in 2011. It was part of County Durham until 1974 when the metropolis of Tyne and Wear was created.

The ancestral home of US President George Washington's family was Washington Old Hall, which you can visit.

Understand
Washington was just one of a series of small mining villages hereabouts: the coal lay deep but had profitable seams and associated industry up to the mid'20th century. Then these declined, but in 1964 Washington was designated as a "New Town". It was laid out in some 15 tracts, some around existing villages and others greenfield, and the grand concept was that each would have its own employment and amenities. The reality is that this created a sprawl of samey burbs with no real centre to the place except Galleries Shopping Centre.

It could have dwindled into a dormitory town for Newcastle, but was boosted with the arrival of Nissan in 1984. British car manufacture suffered from strikes, uncompetitive pricing and unreliability, and the Japanese brand Datsun seized the budget and midprice UK market. It rebranded as Nissan and set up locally, reducing transport times and giving access to the European Economic Area or EU. The plant was built on the former site of RAF Usworth / Sunderland Airport, and management insisted that only a single union would be recognised. The site now employs some 7000. It made the Bluebird, Primera, Ameira and Micra, and now makes the Qashqai, Juke and Leaf (even exporting them to Japan, which drives on the left like Britain) and is beginning to make electric versions of these. Its output is about 500,000 cars per year.

Get in
Newcastle International Airport is 14 miles northwest of Washington: take the Metro into Newcastle or Gateshead and change for the bus, see below. A taxi from the airport to Washington might be £22.

Washington was planned as a shiny modern town so the first thing they did was close the railway. Railways were dirty, obsolete, taxpayer-subsidised and (worst of all) heavily unionised. In the future, men would drive to work in British-built cars; the women would take the bus to go shopping, with head scarves drawn over their 1960s beehive hairdos.

Newcastle Central is the most convenient railway station, with frequent trains from London and the Midlands towards Edinburgh. Sunderland station is about the same distance but has fewer trains.

By bus: Long distance coaches flash past on the motorway and don't stop here, change at Newcastle.

Local buses are mostly run by Go North East:
 * X1 runs every 30 min from Newcastle upon Tyne Eldon Square to Gateshead, Washington (35 min) and Houghton-le-Spring, with alternate buses continuing to Peterlee.
 * Bus 2 runs every 30 min from Silksworth and Sunderland Interchange to High Barnes and Washington.
 * Bus 8 runs hourly from Sunderland to Washington, Chester-le-Street, Beamish Museum and Stanley.
 * Bus 50 runs hourly from South Shields (for Tyne ferry) to Boldon, Nissan factory, Washington, Chester-le-Street and  Durham.

is the bus station, on Galleries Retail Park.

By road follow A1(M) to Junction 64.

Get around
It's a sprawling district and you need your own wheels, which fortunately they manufacture at the northeast edge of town.

See

 * Pit Museum, Washington, Tyne and Wear.jpg
 * in 2021 is closed for refurbishment as a wedding venue. You can admire the exterior from the footpath along the Wear north riverbank.
 * : see Sunderland for this pseudo-Grecian monument to the first Earl of Durham, and for Herrington Country Park just south.
 * : see Sunderland for this collection of military vehicles, and for nearby Hylton Castle.
 * is the 1998 sculpture by Antony Gormley that you'll likely see on the road in, at the south edge of Gateshead.
 * : see Sunderland for this collection of military vehicles, and for nearby Hylton Castle.
 * is the 1998 sculpture by Antony Gormley that you'll likely see on the road in, at the south edge of Gateshead.

Do

 * The Leisure Centre south side of Galleries Retail Park has a gym, fitness classes, 25-m swimming pool, sports hall and squash courts. It's open daily 7AM-9PM.
 * Golf: nearby courses are George Washington GC (at Mercure Hotel, see Sleep), Ravensworth GC, Birtley GC, Wearside GC and Chester-le-Street GC.
 * Cricket: see Chester-le-Street for the Durham CCC ground, which also hosts Test matches.
 * Golf: nearby courses are George Washington GC (at Mercure Hotel, see Sleep), Ravensworth GC, Birtley GC, Wearside GC and Chester-le-Street GC.
 * Cricket: see Chester-le-Street for the Durham CCC ground, which also hosts Test matches.

Buy

 * The Galleries is the large shopping centre at the centre of Washington, by the bus station. It has over 200 shops and lots of free parking.
 * Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland have edge-of-town retail parks that might be handy for motorists. Best known is Metro Centre, on A1(M) west of Gateshead, but you'd only go that far for big-ticket items.

Eat

 * Lebanos in Galleries Shopping Centre is Lebanese, open daily 9AM-8PM.
 * Tim Horton's in the Galleries will revive homesick Canadians, daily 6AM-midnight.
 * The Forge next to Old Hall serves trad fare F Sa noon-3:30PM, 5-8:30PM; Su noon-6PM.

Drink

 * Many folk head into Newcastle for a drink, but Washington is cheaper.




 * Concord the village a mile north of the Galleries has Sir William de Wessyngton (see Eat), The New Tavern, The Middle Inn and The Speculation.




 * Fatfield on the riverbank has Biddick Inn, River Bar and The Havelock.
 * Crossroads Brewery near Concord produces mead. It's not to everyone's taste.

Sleep

 * The A1(M) runs west of town and the main cluster of accommodation is around Junction 64, the slip road for Washington.


 * There's another Travelodge north at Heworth, junction of A194 and A184.
 * In town Victoria Inn didn't open in 2021.
 * In town Victoria Inn didn't open in 2021.
 * In town Victoria Inn didn't open in 2021.

Connect
As of July 2021, the town has 5G from EE and Three, and 4G from O2 and Vodafone.

Go next

 * Newcastle upon Tyne is the buzzing nearby city.
 * Durham has a magnificent cathedral and sturdy castle.
 * Beamish is an extensive open-air industrial museum.