Pandon Burn

Newcastle is built on glacial deposits which are over 100ft deep. As these flowed down to the Tyne gorge, deep valleys were cut into the surface. The Pandon Dene was wide as well as deep - 140 yards wide near the east end of Northumberland Road. Pampedenburn (1270-80, 1324, 1425), Pampedenburne (1430), Pandon Borne (1558). The lower section of Pandon Dene up to Pandon Gate was culverted after 1649. From around 1840 the culverts were used for sewage disposal. Pandon Dene beyond the town walls was the last major section of the valley to be filled. Bourne had previously described it as "a very romantick place, full of hills and vales". Waste material from the Victoria Tunnel was dumped in the dene in 1842, then material from Manors Station construction was added. In 1881 material from St. Michael's Mount was added. By 1886 the Pandon dene was almost all infilled. In 1977 durin President Carter's visit to Newcastle, part of the infill of Pandon Dene south of the Civic Centre, subsided under the weight of the crowd.