Where to Stay in South Shields, England

What is South Shields known for?

Arbeia was the name in Roman times, and it has outlasted every later trade the river brought, from the dock work to the pleasure coast. The beach does the rest. South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, Ocean Beach Pleasure Park and Wet N Wild stand for what the town does with a day out, while St Hilda's Church keeps the older parish end of the same walk.

What are the main landmarks in South Shields?

Arbeia is the anchor. The fort's name became the town's, and the list runs on through St Hilda's Church, the South Shields War Memorial and South Shields Museum & Art Gallery. Across the water there is more.

Tynemouth Castle and Priory, the Tynemouth Watch House and the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade Watch House Museum face the same river mouth, while the Collingwood Monument, Wool House and Field House fill out what South Tyneside keeps.

What is the history of South Shields?

Arbeia came first. The Romans knew the place at the Tyne mouth by that name, and by the Early Middle Ages it answered to Caer Urfa, and both names sit in the record before any of the industry does. Industry followed the river.

The towns along this bank have been industrial since the Middle Ages, and Jarrow Hall, the Parish Church of St Paul and the Monastery Of St Paul Ruins Of Jarrow Monastery mark the monastic ground that sits inside that same span. County Durham held them once. South Shields and its neighbours lay in County Durham historically, and in 1974 they were gathered into the borough of South Tyneside, with the towns across the Tyne made into North Tyneside at the same stroke.

Tyne and Wear followed. Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Sunderland and Washington joined the two Tynesides in that new metropolitan county. The parish record runs alongside all of it: St Hilda's Church, St Peter's Church, the Church of St John the Evangelist and St Mary Tyne Dock carry the church names, and the South Shields War Memorial stands with them.

Where is South Shields?

The Tyne ends here. South Shields sits on the south bank at the mouth of the river, with North Shields and Tynemouth on the North Tyneside side opposite and open water past both. Jarrow shares the south bank.

South Tyneside takes in that side as one borough, and Cullercoats, along with the rest of the north bank, went to North Tyneside when Tyne and Wear was drawn up.

What is the climate of South Shields?

Sea air sets the terms at South Shields. Air coming in off the water at the Tyne mouth keeps the coast cooler through summer and less bitter in winter than ground further inland, and the same wind makes a beach day here a matter of timing rather than certainty. Grey days come often.

When the wind turns, South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, Arbeia and Wet N Wild all give somewhere to be that is not the sand.

How do you get to South Shields?

Newcastle upon Tyne is the way in. It is the largest settlement in Tyne and Wear, and the usual approach to South Shields runs out from the city rather than straight to the coast, with Sunderland and Gateshead the other places of that size nearby. The river divides the approach.

North Shields and Tynemouth sit on the opposite bank, so reaching them from South Shields means crossing the Tyne, and the North Tyneside Steam Railway over there runs as a heritage line rather than a way of arriving. Jarrow and Tyne Dock sit on the local runs inside South Tyneside.