Here’s to two pubs of the past
THE development of Eldon Square’s sprawling shopping precinct in the early 1970s necessitated the demolition of sizable chunks of old Blackett Street, Percy Street and Newgate Street.
Part of the redevelopment of the latter street saw the loss of two venerable Tyneside pubs.
If many of us today (in normal times, anyway) enjoy a drink at the popular Bacchus on High Bridge, it’s interesting to note it isn’t the first Newcastle pub to bear that name.
The original stood on Newgate Street from 1879 until 1971.
‘Another pub bites the dust’ was the Evening Chronicle headline on November 24, 1971, when we reported how the licensee, Mrs Mary Holliday, would draw the last pint at closing time after the building had had a compulsory purchase order slapped on it. The pub stood on the
site of an earlier cottage inn which had traded for 200 years.
At one time, men employed at the nearby Green Market would call in for early morning rum and coffee.
Earlier, it was said, it was the traditional lodgings of the jailer of the Newgate Gaol.
Next door to the old Bacchus was Bourgogne’s. It had been known as the Mason’s Arms until around 1876, when it was bought by a firm of French winemakers called Bourgogne’s. A modern concrete and glass version of Bourgogne’s existed for a while within the new shopping centre.
As for the current Bacchus, it is in fact the third Newcastle incarnation of the pub. A second Bacchus, which you may remember, stood on High Bridge from 1971 to 2001 until it was demolished and rebuilt as the pub we know today closer to Pilgrim Street.