Pelaw

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Pelaw
latitude= 54.953
longitude= -1.546
population =
metropolitan_borough= Gateshead
metropolitan_county= Tyne and Wear
region= North East England
constituency_westminster= Gateshead East and Washington West
post_town= GATESHEAD
postcode_area= NE
postcode_district= NE10
dial_code= 0191
os_grid_reference= NZ291622

Pelaw is a district that forms part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, in north-east England.It lies in between the older settlements of Heworth to the West and Bill Quay to the East with Wardley to the south and the southern bank of the river Tyne forming the northern border.

Pelaw came into being due to the huge Victorian factory complexes of the CWS or Co-Operative Wholesale Society which was the manufacturing division of the then burgeoning Co-Op company. This mile long stretch of red-brick industry was home to factories making clothing and textiles, furniture, pharmaceuticals, household cleaning products, quilts, books and magazines and the world-famous "Pelaw" shoe polish. These factories created Pelaw and were practically its sole emplyoyer during most of the twentieth century but due to inevitable foreign competition, the prevailing economic climate and government policies of the times, the factories were all closed down and demolished between the mid 70s and early 90s to be replaced in recent years by modern housing estates. Two of the original CWS buildings still remain i.e. the Shirt Factory and the Cabinet Factory. The Shirt Factory still manufactures garments but is a private concern and the old Cabinet Factory in Bill Quay which later became a major Brentford Nylons plant has been transformed into a modern business park by the name of Stonehills. The last factory to be demolished was the Print Factory which stood on the left hand side of the adjacent photograph.

This area is served by Pelaw Metro station which is an interchange between trains going to South Shields and those going to Sunderland. The metro station for pelaw was fully refurbished in 2006.

Ronnie Starling, the former England footballer and captain of the 1935 FA Cup winners, Sheffield Wednesday is from Pelaw.

The juvenile jazz band the Pelaw Hussars famously appeared in the film Get Carter.

External links

* [http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/nz2862?user=2363 Geograph page for the area]
*oscoor gbx|NZ291621