Hannays Solicitors and Beach Road

You can find Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited at No.19 Beach Road in South Shields.

Beach Road has an interesting history and for a long time our firm has been associated with it.

The road runs from the corner of Fowler Street down to the sea front with the South Tyneside Council Buildings standing opposite to us.

On Beach Road you will find two fine terraces built in the early 1800’s; Ogle Terrace and Wellington Terrace. There is a road sign at the corner of Fowler Street and Beach Road for Ogle Terrace. Further down Beach Road it was known as Bents Road at one time and Bents Park Road is still nearby.

Ogle Terrace and Beach Road have seen many changes over the years. We believe that Ogle Terrace was named after the Reverend John Saville Ogle (b.1767 d 1853) of Kirkley hall in Northumberland. He jointly owned a large section of land in the centre of South Shields with the Right Honourable Charles Grey Viscount Howick of Howick Hall in Northumberland (his family are famous for having Earl Grey tea named after them).

The terrace was built in the early 1800’s and provided smart accommodation for ship owners and other well to do families. The vicarage for St Hilda’s stood on the corner. Some of the houses were so large that they had stables behind them.

By the end of the 1900’s some of the houses were being used for other purposes – there was a photography studio, a school, solicitors and a dentist.

When the Council buildings were erected across the road from Ogle Terrace at the beginning of the 1900’s the properties in Ogle Terrace lost their front gardens to make way for a footpath and road widening.

During the Second World War some of the buildings were damaged and rebuilt which we believe is true for No.19 as it does not have listed status. You can see what some of the buildings were like on this website: https://southtynesidehistory.co.uk/

Many of the properties that survived the bombing were given listed building status and you can look up their information here: https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/map-search?clearresults=true

Our predecessor Hannay & Hannay Solicitors used various offices in the town over the last 120 years or so. You can still notice a sign for one of their offices on the old Barclays Bank building (which used to be Martins Bank) on the corner of King Street and Fowler Street.

Hannay & Hannay Solicitors had offices on Beach Road (at No.3 which is now flats) for many years before merging with another firm (at No.7) before moving to our current location at No.19 in 2010.

If you would like to contact us please call 0191 4555361 or email info@hannayslaw.co.uk