Northumberland Yesterday and To-dayTerry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
History
Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
Terry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
Northumberland (England) -- Guidebooks; Northumberland (England) -- History
Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the
“Newcastle Anthem”—The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very
different from the green slope and sandy shore of former days; the
keelmen, too, have vanished, and their place in the commercial
economy of the Tyne is taken by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The
old narrow alleys of the town, called “chares,” are fast
disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare, leading from Bigg
Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the explanations that
have been offered to account for its curious name, but the true one
does not seem yet to have appeared.
Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of
the pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel
or shrine of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary’s Well. In Pilgrim
Street was the gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by
beautiful gardens, called Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who
bought it from Sir Thomas Blackett in 1783. It had been built by
another Mr. Anderson in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the site
where once stood the monastery of the Grey Friars; he, however, had
named his mansion “The Newe House.” In this house Charles I. lived
when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place no longer exists, but
the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of its last owners,
for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who purchased it
in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great bell—known
on that account as “The Major”—whose deep reverberant “boom” can be
heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in 1891,
and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate
stood near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this
point onward the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the
Roman Wall.
Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are—No. 17, Eldon Place, where
George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
Thomas’ Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived
when he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne
wrote a fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett
Street, built for the exhibition of pictures by those well-known
painters T.M. Richardson and H.T. Parker, and for a short period
the home of the Pen and Palette Club, which, both here and in its
new home at Higham Place, has entertained many people distinguished
in letters, art, and travel who have visited the town of late
years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the birthplace of Lord Armstrong,
which has only recently been destroyed to make way for the N.E.R.
Company’s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in New Bridge Street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account