Popular park opened to the public in 1876

THIRTY-NINE public parks in the North East have been named among the best in the UK and gained Green Flag awards.

- DAVID MORTON Nostalgia editor

The award scheme recognises and rewards well-run parks, setting the standard for the management of green spaces in this country and around the world.

One of the region's parks picking up an award will next year mark its 150th anniversary. Generations of Tynesiders have flocked to Saltwell Park, in Gateshead, which opened to the public on the Whit weekend of 1876. The expanse of rolling green land was originally owned by William Wailes, a tea merchant and grocer in Newcastle who over time became a wealthy Victorian glass manufacturer.

His money enabled him to acquire the Saltwellside estate which he eventually sold for £35,000 to the town of Gateshead in 1875 a year before it opened as a public park.