Medieval landscape of Sunderland

Although much of the earlier road pattern has been swept away, it is still possible to make out the shape of medieval villages at Southwick and Bishopwearmouth and elsewhere.

Southwick is a classic medieval village, with a green, a back lane (now called The King's Road) which would have given access to open fields, and roads leading off towards Newcastle, Shields, and steeply downhill to river crossings.

Bishopwearmouth village, which clustered mainly around the green on the south side of the parish church, St Michael and All Angels, has been largely obliterated by modern shopping developments, although the area immediately around the church gives a hint of an earlier landscape. So too do photographs of the area before large-scale demolition took place.

See also section on the medieval borough for more on the medieval landscape of Sunderland.