10 city streets and the men behind them
FOR those of us who live, work, shop or play in Newcastle city centre, they’re familiar street names.
We might enjoy a Chinese meal on Stowell Street; we might have caught a bus from the station on Worswick Street; and the young and trendy among us might head to the bars of the “diamond strip” on Collingwood Street.
Stowell, Worswick, Collingwood were among people – usually men – who were important enough to have streets named after them as Newcastle was rebuilt in the early decades of the 1800s into the city we know and love today.
It’s surely common knowledge that Grainger Street was named after Richard of that name (17971861), the builder who brilliantly masterminded the reshaping of the old town.
And Grey Street – once known as Upper Dean Street – was renamed in honour of the man whose statue tops the city’s landmark monument. He was Charles Grey (1764-1845), the Northumberland-born viscount who became Prime Minister and helped shape the 1832 Reform Act.
Here we recall 10 more of the long-deceased great and good who had Newcastle streets named after them. 1. Stowell Street:
Home to the city’s modern-day China Town area, and originally built as a street of houses just inside the old Town Walls in 1820.
Named after Baron Stowell (aka John Scott and Lord Eldon, 17451836) who was husband of Bessie Surtees, and who became Lord Chancellor of England. 2. Worswick Street:
Where many of us caught the bus to locations South of the Tyne from the old station which closed in 1998.
Named after Rev James Worswick who founded Newcastle’s first Roman Catholic Church since the Reformation. 3. Collingwood Street:
Home to some of Newcastle’s most popular bars, Collingwood Street was named after Newcastle-born Lord Cuthbert Collingwood (1748-1810).
His death came five years after he triumphed at the titanic Battle of Trafalgar, where he took command after the death of Lord Nelson. 4. Blackett Street:
Back in time, this was a muddy lane running alongside the Town Walls. Then it was a street of 5. Clayton Street:
Today it’s a city centre street, perhaps less busy with shops than it once was.
John Clayton (1792-1890) was the long-serving Town Clerk and antiquarian who helped ease through various legal issues as Grainger pursued his grand vision for Newcastle. 6. John Dobson Street:
A relatively new city centre street, officially opened in May 1970 to relieve traffic pressure on Northumberland Street.
John Dobson (1787-1865) was the prolific North Shields-born architect responsible for the magnificent Newcastle Central Station and for his work alongside Richard Grainger.
7. Mosley Street:
Built in the 1780s to link the old Flesh Market and Pilgrim Street, and famous for being the first in the town to be lit using gas lamps.
Named after Edward Mosley, a local businessman who financed the building of the fashionable street. 8. Percy Street:
Originally an impoverished part of the route, outside the old Town Walls, that led down towards the old Tyne Bridge and Side, this was
9. Hood Street:
One of streets linking Grey Street and Pilgrim Street, and built by Richard Grainger in the 1830s.
It was named after John Lionel Hood (1799-1848) who was a powerful mayor of Newcastle for 10 years between 1825 and 1835.
10. Nelson Street:
Another Graingertown street, this time leading off Grainger Street. It was home to an 1800s music hall where, notably, Charles Dickens read from a selection of his greatest novels in 1861.
An easy one, this. The street was built in the 1830s, and named in this instance after a great man who did not hail from the North East - Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, naval hero of the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar.