Tile from The Avenue Hotel, South Shields Museum & Art Gallery
Tiles from The Avenue Hotel, about 1899
These tiles were salvaged from one of the properties demolished on King Street in 2022. They came from The Avenue Bar & Buffet, which was latterly Thornton’s chocolate shop before demolition. The Avenue opened in 1867 as The Star, with an entrance on King Street and East Street. It was opposite The Golden Lion Hotel on King Street (where Superdrug is now). It was rebuilt in 1899 and became ‘The Avenue’.
There was a tiled arcade leading from King Street to the rear bar in East Street, with large dark tiles on the rear of the pub. The upstairs lounge had an attractive frieze of fruit around the ceiling, with intricate heraldic tiles around the walls and a glass domed ceiling. it closed as a public house in November 1960, and would later become Hepworth’s the tailors.
Recent acquisitions
In this exhibition, visitors can discover South Tyneside’s evolving food and drink story, from Roman times up to the present day, and learn of the origins of some of the borough’s most iconic eateries, including Colmans fish and chips, Dicksons pork butchers and Minchella & Co’s ice cream. In the decades following the Second World War, culinary horizons were expanded with the introduction of flavours from places far beyond UK shores.
