Birtley, Tyne and Wear

Birtley is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It is situated to the south of Gateshead town, close to the Washington area of the city of Sunderland,

The town was a civil parish with a parish council until April 1, 2006 after a local referendum agreed to abolish it. [1]

As with all of Gateshead, it is traditionally regarded as part of County Durham. Although now the border with Durham is now situated to the south, but uniquely in Gateshead, Birtley retains County Durham postcodes.

The main road through Birtley is the non-primary A167 which runs from Topcliffe in Yorkshire through to the north of Newcastle, and is the same road which runs across the Tyne Bridge. This was an original route for the Great North Road until a bypass was built in the 1930s'