A nest of vice

Who can estimate the amount of immoral conversation that passes, the unlawful schemes plotted, or the low, filthy literature read in common lodging houses and the intemperance that prevails in this nest of vice?’ So wrote the Shields Daily News in 1855, speaking about the warren of streets and alleyways which made up this part of North Shields, known at the ‘Low Town’. Virtually all of these buildings have gone now.