Other Information
This page contains information which may be of use on your visit.
History of Newcastle
New Castle goes back some 1800 years and was part of the fortifications to keep the Scots out as part of Hadrian’s Wall. You’ll see more of this as we go to Tynemouth. The Roman fort of Pons Aelius guarded the bridge over the River Tyne.
Well the Romans left, and it fell into disrepair. Then along came the Normans and did some building first in timber than in stone. Todays castle keep dates largely from this time. The Black Gate was the last part to be constructed.
The castle became a major strong hold the Scottish – English wars but started to decline with the building of Newcastle’s Town Walls. In the 15thC parts of the castle, which was becoming ruinous, were leased out to people to build houses & shops on what is now Castle Garth, which is the location of the Vermont.
By the 1800s the Castle Garth was a bustling community full of slum housing, cobblers’ shops, taverns and a large Presbyterian meeting hall. Most of this was demolished to make way for the building of the railways in the 1840s, gradually revealing the medieval remains from under the later buildings.
In October 2011 the Old Newcastle Project received Lottery funding to renovate and renew the interpretation of the Black Gate and the Castle Keep and link the two buildings together as one site: Newcastle Castle. The site reopened to the public in 2015.
Cultural heritage
The commercial industry was not the only sector to flourish in Newcastle. By the eighteenth century the printing industry was the fourth biggest in UK (after London, Oxford and Cambridge) and the Newcastle Gazette and the Newcastle Courant were the first newspapers in circulation in northern England when they were introduced in 1710 and 1711. The establishment of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1793 (or the Lit and Phil as it is affectionately referred to) attracted intellectuals and academics alike with its wide-ranging debates and plentiful literature in French, Spanish, German and Latin. The building even became the first to use electric lightbulbs when the inventor Joseph Swan chose the Lit and Phil as the showcase for his latest invention.
The industrial revolutionDuring the industrial revolution of 1750-1850, heavy industry thrived in Newcastle and its location made it an ideal base for building the ships and steam trains which powered the era. A number of advancements such as the invention of the steam turbine and the Davy lamp can also be credited to the town. This industrial expansion lead to a huge influx of people, with the population rising from 87,784 in 1851 to 266,671 in 1911 and the honour of city status in 1882. Affluent suburbs appeared on the outskirts of the city centre, made possible by the advancements in railways and tramways. In the 1830’s the developer Richard Grainger and architect John Dobson redeveloped the city centre with the help of other notable architects to include much of the neoclassical architecture which is still evident in the city today. Famous people born in NewcastleAnt & Dec – light entertainers (Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly) |
 |
Click on the links below