Photographs Of Newcastle: St Nicholas' Street

St Nicholas Street in Newcastle runs from the High Level Bridge up to Collingwood Street and the Groat Market. Close to the south of the street are the Black Gate and Castle Keep and junctions with Side and Westgate Road. There is a railway arch (1848) over the street. On the west side of the street are St Nicholas' Buildings (1850), the Old Post Office (1874) and Collingwood House (1974). On the east side is St Nicholas' Square and St Nicholas' Cathedral.

Description courtesy of Co-Curate.

June to August 2022

St Nicholas' Buildings.

Shops and offices. Circa 1850 by Parnell. Sandstone ashlar with Welsh slate roof; rendered chimneys. Venetian Renaissance style. 4-storeys, with fifth over left entrance section and attics over right; 27 bays in all - 5:5:11:5:1, with 5-bay principal entrance sections flanking 11-bay part.

Entrance sections have recessed double doors in outer bays, with lunettes above flanking 3-bay lunette, with roundels in carved spandrels, over shops; all lunettes keyed. ll-bay section has central double door and overlight recessed between Tuscan pilasters. Channelled rustication to piers flanking other doors and defining some shops. Large raised numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 on fascias over doors; 5 incised on piers flanking shop at right. Ground-floor entablature.

1st floor has mullioned-and-transomed 2- light windows in Tuscan Order; Giant Order above contains cross windows in hollow-chamfered reveals on second floor and 2-round-headed lights in arches on Gothic pilasters on third floor. Modillioned eaves cornice. Attic sashes in 3 pedimented aedicules at left and in intermediate bays; in similar aedicules to dormers at right and in intermediate plain dormers in mansard roof.

Grade 2 Listed.Source: Historic England.

The Old Post Office.

Former post office. 1871-74 by James Williams. Sandstone ashlar; roof not visible. Classical style. Closed in the late 1990s and is now used as offices of the NBS division of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Four storeys, three bays. Two superimposed Giant Orders: Roman Doric on two lower floors and Corinthian above. Fluted ground-floor band. Central porch in antis contains recessed double door and overlight, flanked by narrow windows; tripartite sash window above. Sashes in outer bays flanked by pilasters. First floor entablature has triglyph and guttae frieze. Sash windows in architraves, those on second floor with apron balustrades and bracketed pediments, the central segmental on Ionic pilasters. Third floor patterned sill band. Rusticated quoins and top entablature with central panel: POST OFFICE in low relief. Wide dentilled eaves cornice. One bay set back at right in plainer style. Stone area balustrade with chamfered moulded coping.

Historical Note: Post offices were a frequent target for suffragettes as part of their militant campaign of disruption. The Women’s Social and Political Union was formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, and pursued a vigorous policy of direct action against the Liberal government as part of its campaign for votes for women. In October 1909, Chancellor David Lloyd George and Education Secretary Walter Runciman held a series of meetings in Newcastle. Great efforts were made to keep suffragettes out of halls with tickets and barriers, but this moved the protests onto the streets. After a series of violent events during which one woman cut through barricades with a hatchet, Kitty Marion and Dorothy Pethick with stones hidden in their hand muffs, entered the post office to check nobody would be hurt by flying glass, before returning back outside and smashing the windows of the Post Office. Twelve suffragettes were arrested and sent to prison.

Grade 2 Listed. Source: Historic England.

No. 7, Former G.P.O. Hotel.
Now a bar/nightclub.

Nos. 1-5, Collingwood House.

Statue of Queen Victoria, St. Nicholas' Square.

Statue; c.1900 by Alfred Gilbert. Pink granite pedestal, with diagonal pilasters and bowed sides, to bronze statue. Seated figure in chair with elaborate canopy and base. Pedestal inscribed with THE THRONE IS ESTABLISHED BY RIGHTEOUSNESS; Unveiled 1903; the gift of W.H. Stephenson to commemorate 500 years of the shrievalty of Newcastle, 1400-1900.

Grade 2 Listed. Source: Historic England.

July & August 2022

Denton Chare.

One of the minor medieval streets or "chares" linking main routes through the town. This street linked St Nicholas Church to Westgate running parallel just to the south of the modern day Collingwood Street. First reference is in 1425.

Source: Sitelines.