Place name
Jarrow Abbey, Tyne and Wear, is a former benedictine monastery established in the 7thCentury. First recorded in AD750 as Gyruum, the name may derive from the Old English word Gyrwum, meaning marsh dwellers, in reference to a neighbouring bay. Later spellings are Jaruum in 1158, and Jarwe in 1228. In AD674 Benedict Biscop, inspired by a visit to Rome, approached King Ecgfrith of Northumbria for land for a monastery. He was first given a large estate to found St Peter’s, Wearmouth, and then, the king being so pleased at the success of St Peter’s, in AD681 he received land at Jarrow to found St Paul’s. The twin monastery probably once owned much of the land between the rivers Tyne and Wear and grew to become the centre of Anglo-Saxon learning. It produced the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar, Bede. The abbey was closed in 1536 during Henry VIII’s cull of the monasteries. Like many of the roads on the St Helier’s estate this is named after British monasteries and abbeys in remembrance of the area’s historic ownership by Westminster Abbey. The road names are in alphabetical order, of which Aberconway Road in the north west of the estate is first.
