Mona Taylor Homes

[Maggie/915]

Who was Mona Taylor?

[P.A.W.S.]

Where is her home?

[paul mann]

Who was Mona Taylor?

According to Wikipedia Mona Taylor was the wife of Thomas Taylor, a local benefactor who built retirement homes at Wansbeck.

[Maggie/915]

The Mona Taylor homes are/ were at Hepscott.

On the main Morpeth Road.

Sometimes they were known as the Thomas Taylor homes.

Now cafe plant sales and a pupil referral unit.

Mona gets a mention in Morpeth as being a suffragette sympathiser.

[Vic Patterson]

Mona Taylor was a maternity home, my wife and first born were born there and Thomas Taylor's an old folks home, the grandfather-in-law past away there.

[Maggie/915]

Then there was the blind persons home.

Not sure if that had a name.

[John White]

I was a Mona Taylor baby back in the 50s.

I think it was the Sir Nicholas Garrow blind persons home later.

Now it belongs to NCC & is called Hepscott Park.

I went to pick up someone there from Age Concern a number of years ago. Sat outside in the car park I wondered which part of the building I was born in.: A very strange feeling.

[Eileen]

I was a Mona Taylor baby as well back i 1956, my mam used to talk a lot about a midwife call Nurse Dunbar, it later became an old peoples home and changed its nam e to Thomas Taylors.

[Keith Scantlebury]

Funny thing is, my parents lived at West Farm Nedderton with my granparents at the time I was born (my grandfather was the herdsman for Brian Cazaly at the time) The entrance to the farm is on the right just past Stannington Lane end and just a couple of hundred yards before the Taylor Homes. Now you would think that I would be born there, ..... nope, born in Rothbury. To top it all my dad took my mam to hospital in a sidecar during one of the worst winter storms in recent years. There you see, I was neglected from the start !!. The wife was born in the Taylor homes in 1912.

[Maggie/915]

She seems to have been Lady Mona Taylor, but not sure of any other information.

Interesting when a lot of our residents in Bedlington were born there, or others travelled to Rothbury.

Why, I wonder what Rothbury had to offer that Hepscott did not.

Birth for some of my ancestors, seems to include Mitford, Bothal etc and I wonder if there were Maternity facilities around that have been forgotten.

[Symptoms]

Keith wrote: "The wife was born in the Taylor homes in 1912." Blimey, is Mrs Keith 101?

I remember the road signs in the 60s warning motorists of wrinklies crossing the road but when you looked up the long drive I doubt many could have made it to the road from the home.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Nothing concrete but this subject did come up with a few of my family, after they had been digging into their family tree and found out they were born outside of Bedlington/Mona Taylor. It looks like all those born 1948, and after were either born in house or Mona Taylor. Prior to 1948 it looks as though Mona Taylor could not cope with the baby boom, following soldiers return from war, and many mothers were sent off to Hexham - Rothbury etc to deliver. Some of the older cousins thought they must have been adopted it was only when others, of same age, said - 'that's where I was born' hat they realised they were really a Henderson and not adopted.

[Keith Scantlebury]

By Jove Symptoms, old bean, you can count Aye she's 101, still carrying sacks of coal to fuel my still in the potting shed, still running to the offy for my crate of 'dog' every night, still warming my wellies in front of the fire. I've recently bought her an ultra silent lawn mower to use, just push and it cuts, as her teeth aren't what they used to be and the lawn was starting to look a bit ragged. I really am too good to her....... I was born in December '55 and it seemed daft that my mother had to go to Rothbury to have me when there was a maternity home almost literally over the road, quarter of a mile away !!

[Canny lass]

I was a Mona Taylor baby as well back i 1956, my mam used to talk a lot about a midwife call Nurse Dunbar, it later became an old peoples home and changed its nam e to Thomas Taylors.

I Think Nurse Dunbar went on to become the 'dickie nurse' who visited schools in the Bedlington area. As I understood it Rothbury was used when Mona Taylor was fully booked.

[johndawsonjune1955]

Can't believe this topic, my mother worked there and then went to Stannington. A lot of stories i have for Stannington from my mother, now 80. "Bless her"

[Steve Thomas]

On 12/06/2013 at 19:09, Maggie/915 said:

Then there was the blind persons home.

Not sure if that had a name.

Thomas Taylor homes - old folks home latterly called Hepscott Park

Mona Taylor maternity block which was part of the Thomas Taylor complex.

Blind persons home was further down the road towards Morpeth at Hepscott Manor.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

20 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Blind persons home was further down the road towards Morpeth at Hepscott Manor.

I remember that. In October of each year, early 1960's, we used to cycle from the Oval, looking for conkers, to Mitford  via Nedderton, Hepscott and Morpeth. There were two groups of Horse Chestnut trees in Nedderton - first on the left as you rode through from Bedlington and I think they were next to a farm house or farm buildings and the second group was on the right outside Netherton Hall. The next place was one my older brother and his mates took me to, Hepscott Manor & cottages ,but they didn't tell me what the buildings were used for just that I had to keep quiet and hide every time someone came along the road. 

Think it was probably three years before I realised I was hiding behind walls when blind residents were walking up and down the lane.

[Canny lass]

On 30/01/2020 at 15:08, Steve Thomas said:

Blind persons home was further down the road towards Morpeth at Hepscott Manor.

That would be the Nicholas Garrow Home for the Blind. Anybody know anything about Nicholas Garrow?

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Canny lass said:

That would be the Nicholas Garrow Home for the Blind. Anybody know anything about Nicholas Garrow?

Just that I used to cut the grass there as a teenager.  My dad was head gardener at Hepscott Park and we used to travel all over the county looking after the gardens at different homes.

[Chloealice]

I grew up in the Nicholas Garrow now called The old manor house on clifton Lane lived there from the age of 5 to 22. All I will say is plenty of ghosts left behind.