1/50: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne and Wear

In reality, Let's Go 50-50 started almost five months ago, all the way up north in Newcastle. Based on the River Tyne, Newcastle is well known these days because of sport, sadly at the moment for the wrong reasons. When I visited, Newcastle United were 11th in the Premier League table, and the mood around St. James' Park was optimistic: I got the impression that the football club meant a great deal to the people of Newcastle, and hopefully the Magpies will bounce back soon. Fortunately, there's a lot more to this city than just sport, which will come as a relief to many of you: from bridges to shopping to vampire rabbits (yes, you heard right), Newcastle has a lot to offer!


For those who don't know much about Newcastle, it's one of the biggest settlements in the North-East, and is NOT to be confused with anywhere else in the Tyne & Wear area: this is an area of fierce rivalry, and one would not do well to confuse a Geordie (someone from Newcastle) with a Mackem (someone from Sunderland)! The Geordie accent is notorious for being difficult to understand, but in reality is easy enough to get your head around. If you think it sounds vaguely Scottish, that's probably because the Scots have a lot of history with Newcastle: they've attacked it a fair few times, and Newcastle suffered heavy damage both before and during the English Civil War. It flourished during the Victorian era, and compared to other Northern towns coped well with the full brunt of Thatcherism.

My first impression of Newcastle was a collection of interesting statues near the railway station by Sean Henry, closely followed by the city walls of Newcastle itself, which are still mainly intact on its west side. Following these walls all the way round effectively takes you to both Newcastle's Chinatown (worth a peek) and St. James' Park, which took a while to get completely in shot!

Yep, that's a big stadium all right...

Even though he wasn't manager at the time, I did get a sense that the Toon Army really did want Shearer to be in charge: I mean, naming the bar after him would tend to give it away. Michael Owen also seemed to be popular, judging from the cardboard cut-out! As there wasn't a match on that day (Newcastle lost 1-0 at home to Hull in the FA Cup the day after), I didn't stay around for long: St. James' Park should only be properly experienced on match day, as the noise and atmosphere is supposedly incredible, especially when you consider the place holds 52,000!

No wonder he's stopped scoring...

After St. James' Park, I decided to explore Newcastle's shopping facilities, which are undeniably impressive: the Central Arcade and Eldon's have pretty much everything you'd want, and musicians would be spoilt for choice if they lived here. Another thing that struck me as I browsed was that Newcastle is very easy to get around: well signposted, and with a range of landmarks such as Earl Grey's Monument that mean you won't be lost for very long.

All hail the inventor of a cup of tea!

Possibly the best part of Newcastle-upon-Tyne are the parts of it that lend themselves to its name: the River Tyne itself, and the Castle. Walking along the Quayside alone is a delight, and it doesn't hurt that it's entirely free: but it also has some of Newcastle's best attractions on display: Tyne Bridge for one, BALTIC another, but probably the best is the Millennium Bridge.

Tyne Bridge

The Millennium Bridge...
In all its awesomeness!

Apparently it's even more impressive at night, but I think it's a great piece of architecture regardless. And cleverly, it has a built-in cycle path, which seems like a good idea. It also has the advantage of taking you over the River Tyne without having busy traffic thundering across it most of the time, which is the Tyne Bridge's drawback. I didn't have enough time to visit BALTIC or the SPACE centre, both on the other side of the bridge, but both looked interesting from the outside, and Gateshead (the first settlement on the other side of the Tyne) is a nice place to wander about, especially as it has a miniature version of the Big Ben Tower right next to its town hall!

Gateshead: small on budget, big on tributes

Gateshead Town Hall

However, there wasn't a huge amount to see in Gateshead, so I decided to head back over the Tyne and check out the castle that puts the Newcastle in Newcastle, even though it's now an old castle. It's worth going back a different way across the Tyne, as the High-Level Bridge gives you a decent view of East Newcastle.

Tyne Bridge, looking towards North-East Newcastle

The castle is worth a visit, purely because it's a) rather cheap, especially for students: only £1 and b) offers good views of the Tyne from the tower. You can also watch the trains thunder past as they head towards Newcastle Central, itself a hive of activity: and the tower itself comes complete with a Union Jack! Sadly, only the keep survives from the original castle, but the various exhibits are quite interesting, and you can have a lot of fun poking around the various passageways and staircases.

The Castle Keep

We salute you, sah!

Also worth visiting is St. Nicholas' Cathedral: not because of its interior, but because of the house directly behind it, which is home to Newcastle's Vampire Rabbit: for some reason, the designer of the house created a porch that has this most unusual of gargoyles, and it's worth finding if you have a spare minute! No-one's quite sure why it's there, but it makes Newcastle that little more original if nothing else. The Cathedral also has a decent statue of Queen Victoria, though she's not really as amusing (or indeed, as amused).

St. Nicholas' Cathedral

Just when you thought a pink house couldn't be scary...

Newcastle then, was not what I expected: far from being grim up north, it was a fascinating city full of friendly people, and I would quite happily visit it again. Its city centre certainly did nothing to put me off, and it is full of architectural masterpieces, whilst the thriving music scene would seem to suggest it'll be able to shrug off the recession comfortably enough. Maybe not an obvious gem, but definitely worth shouting about. 1 down, 49 to go...