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These days the galleries is full of heroin addicts , benefit scroungers and the shit ofbthe earth , but me mum still loves for some reason.

same outcome as usual .Lack of morals parenting and discipline and crap govts let it slide into a total dirty crapole just like Peterlee and other new towns .Take me back please

On the 1967 OS map there is a factory marked simply as "Works" in the V of the railways where one line went south over the Victoria Bridge and the other went west through Biddick Lane.There's a road called "Shepherd Way". Can anyone tell me what it made ?

No litter to be seen times when people had respect

60 years ago No 6 bus from Grangetown to Southwick via Grindon ,happy days then,

Born and Bred there good people it's God's Country

😢so sad so much lack of investment 😢

I'm proud of my years spent in and around Washington New town 1970 to 1980. St. Bob's was an absolute blast, Blackfell and Oxclose had tons of energy. Burn's in me, now that I live 3000 miles away.

I can still remember smell of the fountain wall on the first floor, I also remember being absolutely fascinated and kind of frightened of the conveyor belt/ dumbwaiter in the cafe at savacentre.

Guided tour round a stately home, or this? No competition. Also highlights the importance of choosing the right music.

I hated Washington, my granda moved there and I never felt comfortable and got lost all the time. The bus service was terrible

Anyone know where to find a George Melly advert from back in the 1980's where he was prancing around singing "Dickens Home Improvement Hypermarket!"?

I had the unfortunate “privilege” of living in this dystopian socialist nightmare in the 1980s. A memory that still haunts me.

I used to love Dickens brings back so memories I used to love soft play area when I was little 😃

Hey look not over run with illegal immigrants

The old bus station in concord was a stinking public toilet

Ah, great memories! Great music too. Thanks for that Phil 👍

I lived as a child under the Alexandria bridge(Thomas street)and watched the workers going into the shipyard on my 3 wheeler bike am proud to be a Mackem

I always go to the cafe on the Green when I come up to see my mam I feel then I have come home

The Palace brought back memories. It was The Locarno back then and when it first opened there was a man in Top Hat and Tails checking everyone trying to get in on a Saturday night. There was a minimum dress code and I thought I would be fine with my made to measure suit from Jacksons the Tailors. However it was not to be, he would not let me in because I was wearing white socks!!!!!

Love it!

What is that stirring music??

Great little film, still remember when people called it Washington New Town.

So sad to see how the Galleries has declined, reflecting a lot of the local problems. It's like a Victorian soup kitchen now. So much poverty around Washington.

Yeah no mention of barmston, it was shit even back then 💀, all of washys estates have druggies and thugs and the galleries is a place of chavs

So many memories ... thank you! :)

the galleries, one of the most advanced shopping centres, now can barely keep a store open for more than a month or two before its closed again

Brilliant. Nostalgia at its finest.

Just seen the Metric Martyr.

Sunderland - a great town when I was growing up there, until it wasn't! Seems to me it all went pear shaped with closure of shipyards, the mines, many worthy businesses and the loss of jobs and incomes that went with all that! The pity of it is that there does not seem to be a real plan for the future, or am I being a merchant of gloom?

What a horrendous place it has now become

Great memories

Where in Washington was the steam rally held?

I liked the pretend Frank Sinatra one

this is my favourite memories of Sunderland so far, you've got photos of places that I can remember and went to regularly and have real memories of. we lived in a pub in Silksworth from about 1987 to 1990 so fond memories of the bridges, crowtree South shields and the metro centre. the photo of the shops by the bus station really choked me up because that was the view I had every time I got on and off a bus. everything was so much cheaper then and we had proper snowy winters and some cracking summers, remember swimming in the sea at South shields.

What is Monroe doctrine?

Washington has a weird vibe,even worse than Cumbernauld if thats possible

Princess Anne opened the Galleries in 1974 so I have just answered my own question

What year is this? I am guessing late 60s or early 70s

Great Pictures, particularly liked the shot of MAWS Pies. A bottle of cider and a Maws pie for lunch when I was at Monkwearmouth College of FE. Couldn't be better.

Did it get worse or better?

They overbuilt. Washington was great from about 1970 to 1980 then any sense of community just seemed to vanish as tens of thousands of new people moved in. Then Sunderland Borough Council took over.

Now a cocaine dealer living on every street.

I used to love going in the joke shop off the green

Heart video, thank you for sharing.

Shithole then shithole now

Love it always have from being a bairn born in brasside Durham I got swept up by sunland s football team throo me grandads and uncles ! Reet the way throo me life even gannin 2 the rink the Locarno + the many boozers and clubs on roker avenue as well as takin me arn bairns winckleing alang at Whitburn ! Great memories and some that now hurt after the decimation of thatchers evil on sunland ! A pig wi knickers and lipstick on that had nowt but vengeance and bile on the north easts menu ! The only thing she niva took was the good memories ?!?!?!

WALOFS..place is a dump since handy woods closed.

omg we lived in Silksworth for about 3 years I think from 1987 to 1990, I was 15 when we left so the photos of the toon and swimming pool are fab and bring back many many memories. when we first moved there they had just not long started building the bridges shopping centre and it was such an exciting thing to go to when it was ready!