New Bridge Street runs east from Manors metro station passing Shieldfield and Battlefield and on to Byker Bridge.
The construction of the central motorway around the city centre in the 1970's cut New Bridge Street in half with city centre part being renamed New Bridge Street West. See the bottom of the page for links to my photos of New Bridge Street West.
The name comes from the Pandon New Bridge that was built over Pandon Dene by John Reed in 1812. The Bridge, roughly where the central motorway is now, was part of the toll road from Newcastle to North Shields. In 1973 it was reported that during works on the new central motorway, an abutment of the old bridge was found.
The now curtailed street features St Dominic's Priory Church (1887) and the former Gibson Street Baths (1907), both listed buildings.
Description courtesy of Sitelines.
7th September 2025
Priory of St. Dominic.
Roman Catholic Priory. Foundation stone dated 1887. By Dunn and Hansom. Flemish bond brick with terracotta dressings, Welsh slate roof. Gothic style. Two storeys. Pent roof to porch containing half-glazed door with coloured glass. Cusped windows and lancets. Spiral-topped drip moulds, sloping sills and moulded surrounds to all windows. Lintel strings on first floor with mask decoration.Octagonal brick chimneys.
Grade 2 Listed. Source: Sitelines.
New Bridge Street, nos. 115 to 119.
New Bridge Street, no. 121.
New Bridge Street, nos. 125 to 133.
New Bridge Street, no. 133.
New Bridge Street, nos. 137 to 139.
New Bridge Street, nos. 152 to 156.
I've never noticed any work going on here for a couple of years now.
New Bridge Street, no. 172.
June 2025
Gibson Street Baths.
Rare example of a now disappeared social phenomenon - the public washhouse - which developed along with other sanitary reforms in the mid Victorian era. 1906-7 by F.H. Holford, City Surveyor. Sandstone ashlar; Welsh slate roof with stone gable copings. Brick chimney.
During WW2 the reservoir of water was used by the National Fire Service. The faded sign is still visible next to the door. Only one of three pre-1914 swimming baths in Tyne and Wear (the others being Wallsend and Byker). Gibson Street was the fourth public baths built in Newcastle under the Baths and Wash Houses Act 1846 (the aim was to provide individual 'slipper' baths and laundries to combat disease). The building was opened in April 1907. Arthur 'Jack' Jarvis, Olympic swimmer entertained the crowd. The baths cost £28,000. There were separate entrances for men and women with stained glass windows. On the ground floor there are green glazed brick walls. There were 23 slipper baths (only 4 were for women).
The swimming pool measured 75 feet x 28 feet. Gibson Street had electricity and water filtration. It had an arched plastered ceiling for improved acoustics. It had amphitheatre seating on both sides, lined at the rear by demountable wooden changing cubicles. The men's entrance retains its original turnstile and ticket windows.
Inside the men's entrance hall are four wonderful tile pictures depicting mermaids, a game of water polo, a diver in a striped costume and yachts. Each panel is around four feet x two feet. Lynn Pearson says these are without parallel, even in the palatial historic baths in Manchester, Birmingham and Hull. The two mermaid panels bear the signature of Carter & Co, tile and pottery manufacturers from Dorset. The other two are unsigned. There is a fifth panel which lists the 15 members of the Baths & Wash Houses Committee, the architect and builders, beneath the city's coat of arms.
The building has been unused since 2016 and on the market since 2017 with no buyers found. Earlier in 2025 it was placed on a list of the 10-most endangered buildings in the UK by the Victorian Society.
Grade 2 Listed. Source: Sitelines.
New Bridge Street, nos. 152 to 156.
Church of St. Dominic.
Roman Catholic Priory Church. 1869-73 by A. M. Dunn. Coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roof. Aisled nave and chancel with apse and ambulatory/vestry. Aligned north-south, with altar at south. Ritual south-west tower above adjacent gateway to priory yard. C13 style. West front has entrance obscured by mid C20 porch containing re-used doors with studs and 'D' motif in iron. Blind arcade above porch contains central gabled niche with headless statue: large wheel window above flanked by carved symbols of Evangelists. West buttresses, the right widened into a stair turret, have empty gabled niches. Gatehouse at right has splayed reveals to moulded arch under dripmould; empty niche above; blind arcade beneath hipped roof with four top gablets. Lancets in aisles, paired on south; triple clerestory windows in bays defined by buttresses.
9 high lancets in apse. Steeply-pitched roofs. Interiors: polychrome brick above boarded dado; ashlar dressings; painted plaster apse; collar-truss roof. 6-bay nave and one-bay chancel have round piers with stiff-leaf capitals supporting moulded arches; carved heads in spandrels below continuous dripmould; Frosterley marble shafts with clasping bands to chancel and chancel aisle arches. Rere-arches to windows. Crocketed stalls in chancel are 1826 from Peterborough Cathedral. 1879 alabaster pulpit with scenes of life of St. Dominic. Marble communion rail. Square font on marble shafts. Patterned tiled floor in chancel. Glass by Atkinson Bros. Newcastle in south aisle. Large painting by Dastis of St. Dominic in Lady Chapel.
Grade 2 Listed. Source: Sitelines.
15th July 2024
New Bridge Street.
Looking west towards the city centre with the new HMRC on Pilgrim Street rising in the background.
New Bridge Street, nos. 123 to 133.
4th April 2024
Gibson Street Baths.
Priory of St. Dominic.
21st March 2024
Argyle Street, no. 2, Alfie's Bar.
Previously The New Bridge Inn.
7th April 2023
Gibson Street Baths.
Argyle Street, no. 2, Alfie's Bar.
New Bridge Street, no. 160 to 170.
Church of St. Dominic.
New Bridge Street, East Coast Mainline.
11th October 2022
New Bridge Street, Tanners Arms Public House.
9th August 2022
Argyle Street, Google Maps man.
23rd July 2022
New Bridge Street, 91 Ridley Villas.
These Georgian villas of the 1820s were once part of a row of grand houses and may have been designed by John Dobson. The villas were built on land belonging to Sir Matthew White Ridley. Domestic use of the villas ceased in 1913/1914 when the building was converted into The Newcastle Tuberculosis Dispensary. By the 1960s Ridley Villas was being used as a general medical unit, which closed in 1972. The two storey brick and stone villas have been a hostel amongst other uses.
Source: Sitelines
New Bridge Street, no. 150.
16th June 2022
Gibson Street Baths.
Argyle Street, no. 2, The New Bridge Inn.
New Bridge Street, no. 140, Bricks and Mortar.
New Bridge Street, nos. 152 to 156.
28th May 2022
New Bridge Street, 91 Ridley Villas.
New Bridge Street, no. 158.
New Bridge Street, no. 172.
New Bridge Street, no. 174.
New Bridge Street, no. 176.
New Bridge Street, no. 178.
New Bridge Street, no. 180.
Society of St Vincent de Paul.
24th April 2022
Former nos. 141 to 143 & 145 to 147.
From memory there was a kitchen or bathroom shop on this site which closed around 2019 and was demolished soon after. The student accommodation behind, on Clarence Street, was constructed around 2015.
New Bridge Street, nos. 115 to 119.
Northumbria University Business School and student accommodation.
24th April 2022
Argyle Street, no. 2, The New Bridge Inn.
New Bridge Street, 91 Ridley Villas.
New Bridge Street, nos. 123-125.
New Bridge Street, nos. 129 to 133.
New Bridge Street, nos. 137 to 139.
1st April 2022
Argyle Street.
Rear of New Bridge Street, south side.
1st November 2021
Church of St. Dominic.
Gibson Street Baths.
Former nos. 141 to 143 & 145 to 147.
New Bridge Street, nos. 115 to 119.
New Bridge Street, no. 132, Caffe 1901 Deli.
New Bridge Street, no. 176.
New Bridge Street, no. 180.
New Bridge Street, no. 178 & no. 180.
New Bridge Street, nos. 123 to 125.
New Bridge Street, nos. 127 to 131.
New Bridge Street, no. 135.
New Bridge Street, graffiti removal team.
Priory of St. Dominic.
7th June 2021
New Bridge Street, Tanners Arms Public House.
9th July 2015
Road Traffic Accident.
24th July 2011
Northumbria University Business School construction.
3rd May 2011
New Bridge Street, 91 Ridley Villas.
New Bridge Street.
Taken from Manors looking east.
Northumbria University Business School construction.
13th March 2011
Northumbria University Business School construction.
23rd October 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
25th August 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
11th August 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
23rd July 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
17th June 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
14th February 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
Half of the northern side of New Bridge Street being demolished.
3rd February 2010
Northumbria University Business School construction.
8th September 2008
New Bridge Street, Tanners Arms Public House.
29th March 2006
Argyle Street, no. 2, The New Bridge Inn.
1996
The New Bridge Street Bedding Centre.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
New Bridge Street.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
Byker Bridge, no. 8, Ossie's Tattoo Surgery.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
New Bridge Street, New Bridge and Joe Wilsons pubs.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1975
New Bridge Street, The Dispensary.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
New Bridge Street Day Nursery.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
Undated
Ridley Villas.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1970
New Bridge Street Railway Station.
Looking across to the Booking Office which is being demolished.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1968
St. Dominic's Priory Church.
The photograph shows the altar in the apse of the church.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1966
The Blyth and Tyne, New Bridge Street.
Demolished for the central motorway.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
Chest Clinic (Ridley Villas, no. 91).
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
Advertising Hoardings.
At the junction with Stoddart Street.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1965
St. Dominic's Catholic Men's Club, Blackfriars Hall.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1930
New Bridge Street Goods Station.
Opened in 1907 by the North Eastern Railway. Built of concrete and said to be the largest covered goods station in the country. In September 1941 the station was damaged in Newcastle's worst air raid of World War II. The building burned for weeks because it was filled with flammable goods including sugar, linseed and cattle food. The station was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by Warners Cinema, and now Northumbria University's Campus East.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1908
Gibson Street Baths.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1901
New Bridge Billiard Hall.
The billiard hall was on the corner of New Bridge Street and Minden Street. The Kings Manor Public House is on the far left.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1900
New Bridge Street, St. Dominic's Church.
As well as the church the photograph shows the premises of 'B. Donaldson Sculptor and the Tanners Arms in the distance.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
1833
Pandon Dene Bridge.
An 1833 pen and ink drawing of the bridge over Pandon Dene by James Dewar.
Photo courtesy of Newcastle Libraries.
More Information:
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Ridley Villas
- Sitelines: Newbridge Terminus
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Station
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Tramway Hotel
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Regent Terrace
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Adelaide Hotel Public House
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Sun Inn
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, well
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, Blyth and Tyne Inn
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street, New Bridge Chapel
- Sitelines: New Bridge Street Goods Station
- Sitelines: Pandon New Bridge
- BBC: Former baths on most-endangered list
- Historic England: Gibson Street Baths
- Co-Curate: Gibson Street Baths
- Derelict Places: Gibson Street Baths
- Co-Curate: New Bridge Street
- Wikipedia: New Bridge Street railway station
See my other photos around New Bridge Street:
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