The Quayside is an area along the banks (quay) of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne (the north bank) and Gateshead (south bank) in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom.
The Quayside is an area along the banks (quay) of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne (the north bank) and Gateshead (south bank) in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom.
The area was once an industrial area and busy commercial dockside serving the area, while the Newcastle side also hosted a regular street market. [1] Trade and passenger shipping was extensive in the 19th and early 20th centuries with companies such as the Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Company and Nielsen, Andersen & Company operating services both nationally and to European countries including Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. [2]
In recent years the docks became run-down, and the area has since been heavily redeveloped to provide a modern environment for the modern arts, music and culture, as well as new housing developments (e.g. at St Peter's Marina [3] ). Along the Newcastle side is an area that houses restaurants, bars and night clubs as well as housing and the Newcastle Law Courts. The NewcastleGateshead initiative now lists the Quayside as a top ten attraction. [4]
The Gateshead side of the river is designated and signposted as Gateshead Quays. It is the site of the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Also moored on the Gateshead side from 1984 until 2008 was the Tuxedo Princess (replaced for a time by sister ship Tuxedo Royale), a floating nightclub, beneath the Tyne Bridge near the Sage. [5]
The Sage, an arena and conference centre, is under construction between the Sage Gateshead and the Baltic. [6]
One of the Quayside's main features is the pedestrian Gateshead Millennium Bridge, opened in 2001, which spans the river between the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Newcastle Law Courts. The other bridge which allows direct road and pedestrian links between the two banks is the low level Swing Bridge, built in 1876, and located nearer the two respective city centres. Using the two bridges, the Quayside is the venue for the junior course of the annual Great North Run. [7]
In July 2019, Newcastle City Council passed plans to erect a giant observation wheel on the quayside at Spiller's Wharf as part of a wider 'Giants on the Quayside' development. Dubbed the "Whey Aye" wheel, at 460 feet (140 m) tall it would be the tallest such structure in Europe upon completion, which was anticipated to take two years. [8] [9]
Notable buildings include:
Go North East's QuayLink Q1, Q2 and Q3 services operate frequently. QuayLink connects most of the main attractions and destinations in NewcastleGateshead, serving those who live, work, study, or those just visiting the area.
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located on the River Tyne's northern bank opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length is 73 miles (118 km). It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.
Gateshead is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Tyne Bridge is a through arch bridge over the River Tyne in North East England, linking Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. The bridge was designed by the engineering firm Mott, Hay and Anderson, who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, and was built by Dorman Long and Co. of Middlesbrough. The bridge was officially opened on 10 October 1928 by King George V and has since become a defining symbol of Tyneside. It is ranked as the tenth tallest structure in Newcastle.
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne between Gateshead arts quarter on the south bank and Newcastle upon Tyne's Quayside area on the north bank. It was the first tilting bridge ever to be constructed. Opened for public use in 2001, the award-winning structure was conceived and designed by architectural practice WilkinsonEyre and structural engineering firm Gifford. The bridge is sometimes called the 'Blinking Eye Bridge' or the 'Winking Eye Bridge' due to its shape and its tilting method. The Millennium Bridge stands as the twentieth tallest structure in the city, and is shorter in stature than the neighbouring Tyne Bridge.
The Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It includes Gateshead, Rowlands Gill, Whickham, Blaydon, Ryton, Felling, Birtley, Pelaw, Dunston and Low Fell. The borough forms part of the Tyneside conurbation, centred on Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2021 census, the borough had a population of 196,154.
The Glasshouse is an international centre for musical education and concerts on the Gateshead bank of Quayside in northern England. Opened in 2004 as Sage Gateshead and occupied by North Music Trust The venue's original name honours a patron: the accountancy software company The Sage Group.
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is a centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It hosts a frequently changing variety of exhibitions, events, and educational programmes with no permanent exhibition. The idea to open a centre for contemporary arts in Gateshead was developed in the 1990s, which was a time of regeneration for the local area—the Sage and Gateshead Millennium Bridge was also being conceived of in this period.
The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.
The great fire of Gateshead and Newcastle was a tragic and spectacular series of events starting on Friday 6 October 1854, in which a substantial amount of property in two North East England towns was destroyed in a series of fires and an explosion which killed 53 and injured hundreds. There is only one building still extant on the Newcastle Quayside which predated the fire.
Gateshead College is a further education college in the town of Gateshead, England. It offers further education for 16-18 year olds as well as higher education, apprenticeships, parti-time adult learning and training for employers. Established on November 15, 1955 at Durham Road in Low Fell, Gateshead, it was closed in January 2008 for its displacement to the new main site located at the Baltic Quayside in Gateshead.
QuayLink was a bus service in Tyne and Wear, England, which connected Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne, and later North Tyneside, with the Quayside. Funded by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, the service was launched on 22 July 2005. Operated initially by Stagecoach North East, the service was transferred to Go North East in July 2010 – later being operated commercially from July 2015, following budget cuts.
Newcastle City Centre is the city centre district of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the historical heart of the city and serves as the main cultural and commercial centre of the North East England region. The city centre forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation.
The Gateshead Garden Festival was the fourth of the United Kingdom's five national garden festivals. Held between May and October 1990, in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, it lasted 157 days, and received over three million visitors. Attractions included public art displays, a Ferris wheel, and dance, music, theatre and sporting events. The site comprised four areas: Norwood, Riverside, Dunston and Eslington Park, and several modes of transport were provided around the site: a monorail which ran between Norwood and Eslington, a narrow gauge steam railway between Dunston and Redheugh, and a road train which covered the entire site. A ferry across the River Tyne, between Dunston Staithes and Newcastle Quayside, was also provided.
The Sage is a forthcoming indoor arena and conference centre in Gateshead, United Kingdom due to open in phases between 2025 and 2027. The site is located between The Glasshouse and BALTIC centres on Gateshead Quayside.
The Tuxedo Princess and Tuxedo Royale were two former car ferries used as permanently moored floating nightclubs in the United Kingdom from the 1980s to the 2000s. Both ships saw use on the River Tyne at different times, while the Princess also saw use on the River Clyde in Glasgow, and the Royale on the River Tees in Middlesbrough.
TSS Caledonian Princess was a turbine steamship, built by William Denny & Brothers in 1961. A roll-on/roll-off car ferry, she primarily served the Stranraer - Larne route. Under Sealink ownership, however, she operated in both the English Channel and the Irish Sea. From 1984, she spent her later life as the Tuxedo Princess, a floating nightclub on the River Tyne. She never saw service under her final name, Prince, and was scrapped in 2008.
The Newcastle & Carlisle Railway (N&CR) was an English railway company formed in 1825 that built a line from Newcastle upon Tyne on Britain's east coast, to Carlisle, on the west coast. The railway began operating mineral trains in 1834 between Blaydon and Hexham, and passengers were carried for the first time the following year. The rest of the line opened in stages, completing a through route between Carlisle and Gateshead, south of the River Tyne in 1837. The directors repeatedly changed their intentions for the route at the eastern end of the line, but finally a line was opened from Scotswood to a Newcastle terminal in 1839. That line was extended twice, reaching the new Newcastle Central Station in 1851.
The National Cycle Route 725, also known as the Great North Cycleway is a partially-complete regional cycling route that forms part of the National Cycle Network (NCN) in the United Kingdom.
The Old Town Hall is a municipal building in West Street, Gateshead, England. It is a Grade II listed building.