Gateshead Fell was a district in County Durham, England. It was located on the immediate border of the town of Gateshead, 2.3 miles from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Once described as a "dark, spongy moor", Gateshead Fell existed in some form for almost nine hundred years before it was enclosed in 1809 and divided into a number of villages, notably Sheriff Hill, Low Fell and Wrekenton, which were themselves absorbed by the urban expansion of Gateshead and were officially incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead with the passing of the Local Government Act in 1974. History Gateshead Fell, a constituent part of the ancient County of Durham, took its name from nearby Gateshead and the fact that the area was "a fell or common contigious to it". It has existed in some form for over one thousand years, but little of that early history survives today. Perhaps the most notable occurrence was that in 1068 when Malcolm, King of Scotland, marched across the Scottish border to challenge the authority of William the Conqueror. Malcolm, accompanied by "a retinue of native insurgents and foreign auxiliaries", was met by William's men and was decisively beaten. Little of further note is recorded until approximately 1647, when Gateshead Fell was surveyed and found to contain some 1,300 acres. In that lay much of what is now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. The northern boundary reached Whinney House and Beacon House, to the south came Wrekendyke, to the east lay the old Roman road and to the west was Chowdene, now ostensibly part of Low Fell, along with what is now Eighton Banks (near Wrekenton). Each boundary was marked by a cross, with some engraved with the inscription "I, Christ". By the middle of the eighteenth century, Gateshead Fell had become a place of considerable notoriety. Indeed, when John Wesley arrived in Gateshead in February 1745, he noted that: "It was past eight before we got to Gateshead Fell, which appeared a great, pathless waste of white. The snow filling up and covering all the roads, we were at a loss as how to proceed, when an honest man of Newcastle overtook and guided us to safe into the town. Many a rough journey have I had before, but one like this I never had..." By the turn of the 18th century, the essential character of Gateshead Fell had changed