Southwick is a former village and now a suburb on the north banks of the

River Wear The River Wear (, ) in North East England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers, wends in a steep valley through th ...

in the

city of Sunderland The City of Sunderland () is a metropolitan borough with city status in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, North East England. It is named after its largest settlement, Sunderland, spanning a far larger area, including nearby towns i ...

in the county of Tyne and Wear, historically in County Durham. From 1894 to 1928, Southwick was administered by the Southwick-on-Wear

Urban District Council In England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local gove ...

, before being absorbed by Sunderland. Southwick borders with Castletown and

Hylton Red House Hylton Red House, known locally just as Red House (often spelled as Redhouse), is a suburb in the north east of Sunderland, England, situated between Downhill to the west and Marley Pots and Witherwack to the east. The area, Hylton Red House, ...

to the west,

Monkwearmouth Monkwearmouth is an area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear in North East England. Monkwearmouth is located at the north side of the mouth of the River Wear. It was one of the three original settlements on the banks of the River Wear along with Bisho ...

to the east,

greenbelt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which h ...

farmland and the suburb of

Carley Hill Carley Hill is a suburb of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear in North East England. Geography Carley Hill is bordered by Witherwack to the north west, Marley Pots to the south west and High Southwick to the direct south. Politics Carley Hill is pa ...

to the north, and the Wear to the south although the

Queen Alexandra Bridge The Queen Alexandra Bridge is a road traffic, pedestrian and former railway bridge spanning the River Wear in North East England, linking the Deptford and Southwick areas of Sunderland. The steel truss bridge was designed by Charles A. Har ...

links Southwick to

Pallion Pallion is a suburb and electoral ward in North West Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, England. Most of the buildings in the area were built during the Victorian Era and consist of large terraced houses built for shipbuilders, but also smaller one-s ...

and central Sunderland. It is home to a police station that services the north of Sunderland. There is a primary school, but no secondary school.

Sunderland A.F.C. Sunderland Association Football Club (, ) is an English professional football club based in the city of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Formed in 1879, Sunderland play in the Championship, the second tier of English football. The club has won six t ...

Stadium of Light The Stadium of Light is an all-seater football stadium in Sunderland, England, and the eighth and current home to Sunderland A.F.C. With space for 49,000 spectators, the Stadium of Light is the ninth largest football stadium in England. ...

is visible to the east on the Monkwearmouth side. Southwick is centered on its village green, a commercial area containing three listed buildings; a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

war memorial, ''The Tramcar Inn'' a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

built in 1906, and a memorial lamp-post built in 1912

According to ''Indices of Deprivation'' published by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in 2000, Southwick is the most deprived of the 25 wards in Sunderland, the fifth most deprived in

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcastl ...

, and the fifty-fifth in England

History

Quarrying has taken place in the area for many centuries but it was not until the 17th century that large quarries were built and production substantially increased. Wagonways were built to transport limestone from the quarries. 1698 saw the establishment of

glassmaking Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass container ...

in Southwick with the opening of Suddick Glasshouse. This was followed by Wearmouth Crown Glassworks in 1786. Southwick Bottleworks was a significant employer from 1846 to 1917. Although it is likely that shipbuilding had taken place earlier the first registered shipbuilder was Henry Debord who was in business from 1785 to 1797. William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd opened a shipyard in Southwick in 1845. At the time of a company merger with Austin's in 1954 the yard was redeveloped at a cost of £3 million. It closed in 1988.

Etymology

Southwick in Sunderland has a different origin to other places called Southwick: the name is of Scandinavian origin: and means "clearing by a marsh", from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''sogr'' "moss, marsh, swamp (cf. modern "soggy")" and ''þveit''/''thveit'' " thwaite, clearing". The name was recorded as ''Suvveite'' in 1189.

References

City of Sunderland suburbs Sunderland {{TyneandWear-geo-stub