The antiquarian
John Hodgson claimed to have named the village. He wrote, "After the enclosure of the common (in 1822), Mr. Watson, of Warburton Place, Carrhill, founded a considerable village at this place, which, at my suggestion, he called Wrekenton." This name was chosen because Wrekenton and Eighton Banks were divided by the remains of the Wrekendyke Roman road. Wrekenton is believed to have been the meeting point of two Roman roads,
Cade's Road and the Wrekendyke Road. Cade's Road ran from the
Humber to
York and
Newcastle, with the Wrekendyke Road branching away to the north east passing close to
Jarrow, and ending at the Roman fort and harbour of
Arbeia, at
South Shields. It has even been conjectured that a Roman fort existed at the site now occupied by the Ravensworth Golf Club, but no evidence for this has been found. In the 1860s, Wrekenton was still a very small village with about two hundred dwellings. It remained so for a further seventy years until
slum clearance in Gateshead resulted in many new houses being built in Wrekenton, in order to accommodate the previous slum-dwellers. The main industries of the area surrounding the village during the nineteenth century were coal mining, quarrying, brickmaking and agriculture. The spelling of the town's name is recorded, in the mid 1890s, as "Wreckenton", which survived as the name of the local council ward serving the area until 1981. Old Durham Road was the main route between
Durham and
Newcastle until 1827, when a new road was built to the west of it on lower ground and called Durham Road. Old Durham Road climbed the steep bank, known as Long Bank to Wrekenton and from there headed north to Beacon Lough before dropping down the steep bank into Gateshead. The mail coach used to pass along this road and one of the stopping places for the coach was
The Coach and Horses, an inn that still exists today. Other equally old public houses in Wrekenton, dating from the nineteenth century, are
The Seven Stars and
The Ship. == Demography ==