A Cathedral of Steam
Newcastle Central Station
A masterpiece of design and engineering that still impresses 175 years after its unveiling. The architect of Newcastle Central, Sir John Dobson, had worked alongside Richard Grainger on a comprehensive redevelopment of Newcastle in the 1830s and 1840s, today dubbed Grainger Town. Dobson’s design of the railway station echoed his work with Granger and thus has a visual connection with the city centre that is fairly unusual in this country.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert appear to have criss-crossed the country opening buildings galore. They arrived at Newcastle on 29 August 1850 to cut the ribbon on the city’s new station. The event is memorialised in stone above the exit. Victoria and Albert appear to be moonlighting as Greek Gods, they were later joined by the somewhat more monarchial looking King Edward VII. He was in town to open the bridge your train probably just trundled over the Tyne on.
Glance to the right of the stony monarchial faces and there are banners advertising the Centurion Bar, proclaiming boldly that it is ‘probably the best station bar in the world’.
To be fair, it is.
The walls are clad in £3.8m worth of Burmantofts tiles. Huge doric columns dominate both ends of the room, one frames a fourteen-foot square painting of the North Tyne by Byron Dawson. However, casual visitors might want to avoid Newcastle United match days when an 84-inch TV screen is lowered in front of the mural.
The iconic view of Newcastle, with an iconic Deltic locomotive departing the station. A Gavin Morrison photograph from my book
There’s an awful lot more about this fabulous station in my recently released book, On the Tracks of the Flying Scotsman. My heart still soars whenever I step off a train at Newcastle. So many memories of changing to catch the slow train to Widdrington and onto my mum’s home town of Amble.
The next post will be a homage to Northumberland. The lovely coast and Cheviots pull at my self-identity. I am a thoroughly post-industrial Bradfordian, but my DNA loiters in the Northumbrian countryside.