In 1263 the king confirmed an earlier grant to the friars of the aqueduct which they had "brought from a well without their court to their house and thence to the said town" since it would be for the improvement of the whole town. The location of the well and aqueduct is uncertain, though it is likely that the former lay to the north or north-west of the friary buildings, even outside the later town wall, and it is possible that the aqueduct was seen during the digging of the trial pits in the cemetery north of the church. Dated C13th.

First reference to Dominicans in Newcastle 1239. In 1250 the prior was criticized by the General Chapter of the order for architectural extravagance. Their precinct was acquired piecemeal, and came to extend from Low Friar St (E) to beyond Corporation St (W), Morden Tower (N) to town wall (S). Gatehouse was probably in Low Friar Lane. Buildings: church (6-7 bay aisled nave, aisleless quire), 90 ft square south cloister with lean-to walks, E range (sacristy, slype, chapter house, ? Warming house, dormitory over), S range (daystair, slype, refectory, slype, ? Kitchen), W range (external lavatorium, guesthall, slype). Possible lesser cloister to W. Largely one period, a few minor alterations. Surrendered in 1539 by the prior and 12 friars. Church, sacristy, E half of chapter house and cloister were then demolished, and exist today only as foundations. The remaining buildings were bought by the town, and adapted in the C16/17-20th century for other uses. In 1552 the mayor and burgesses leased the buildings to nine of the town's craft companies. Each range was divided into three company halls, with ground-floor almshouses and a meeting hall above. After some rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries, the companies left their premises and squalor set in. In the 1930s families living on 'Friars Green' were rehoused. Restoration and archaeological excavation began in 1973. The City's planning committee commissioned a report from Wales, Wales & Rawson on how to secure the buildings. Restoration was completed in 1981. Black Friars now houses craft shops, a restaurant and offices. Listed building description - Blackfriars. West range. (Formerly listed as Stowell Square) G.V. I Dominican Friary: later Company halls and almshouses; now workshops and shop. Medieval with C18 alterations; restored 1978-80. Coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings; roof of pantiles with 2 rows of stone slates at eaves. 2 storeys; 3:3:3 bays. East elevation facing cloister: Saddler's Hall at left: large trefoil- shaped lavatorium; inserted early C18 doorway at right; corbels at cloister roof level. Upper floor has sashes and blocked square-headed openings. Tailors' Hall: rebuilt 1787 (dated plaque); flat stone lintel to renewed door above ground level; similar lintels to sashes on each floor. Skinners' Hall: pointed-arched door at right; 3-light C17 window at left; 2 sashes on first floor, and door with 1980 balcony at right, have flat stone lintels. All sashes renewed. A scheduled ancient monument. The friars arrived when the layout of the town was already much established and so they found themselves on the fringe of the built up area. They received grants of both messuages and open land. They acquired their land in piecemeal fashion and so their precinct continued to grow until 1329 (the date of the last grant of land, Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1327-30, 392) when the area amounted to 11.6 acres. The friars were given permission to close an unnamed street, perhaps Fenkle Street (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1272-81, 397). The large church with aisled nave and aisleless chancel lay on the north side of a 90 feet square cloister with lean-to walks. The elevations of the surviving claustral ranges were altered in the 18th century but the plan is fairly standard with a few quirks. The chapter house and warming house survive in the east range, the refectory in the south range. The friary was suppressed in 1539 and the site passed the mayor and burgesses. Dated C13th.

In 1834-5 Grainger cleared and developed the site of the nunnery, "the Nuns' field". In the course of this work there were discovered coffins of stone, lead and wood, 3-4 feet deep, embedded in clay, a lot of bones including "several entire skulls", and "a fragment of a blue marble tombstone", with a Lombardic inscription round its margin and a cross shaft incised in the centre. It was also reported that human remains had been found under the pavement in Grainger Street. It was suggested, quite reasonably, that these were from the nuns' cemetery but, without a precise findspot or clear association with the nunnery church, it is impossible to be wholly certain.

Origin is uncertain. Brand, followed by Knowles and Hadcock, suggest it was founded before 1086; the latter repeat another view that it was refounded in c. 1135, perhaps by David I of Scotland. 20 nuns in 1322, 11 at the time of its suppression in 1540. The buildings are said to have been demolished by Robert Anderson in perhaps the late C16. The precinct lay south of High Friar Street, east of the Franciscan friary, and behind the burgages of Newgate Street. It was approached via a gate in Nuns Lane. The precise site of the buildings is unknown, though19th century writers suggested that the remains of medieval structures survived until the 1880s/1890s in the block bounded by Nun Street, Grainger Street, Newgate Street and Nuns Lane. Grainger's construction work in 1834/5 produced human and architectural remains, and miscellaneous artifacts. The medieval wall which is reported to have been reused for the building of the playhouse may perhaps have been part of the precinct wall. For the location of the playhouse see Hutton's map of 1770. Lay between the market street (vicus fori) and the Lort Burn. Dated C11th.

In 1225/1226, before the town was walled, Henry III granted to the Friars Minor a conduit for water from their well called "Sevenwellheads". As the name suggests, the well was formed "by an aggregation of streams", and the friars claimed they also had the power to enclose the well with stone and mortar, and lock it up. This led to trouble, in the 1340s, with the townsfolk who broke the pipes and diverted the water. As the water pipe was located "near the town wall in the cemetery of St. Andrew", and "near Newgate", the well was presumably on the north-west side of the town. The conduit led from the well "along the high street" to the friary, and there is a hint in a document of 1348 that the residents of both Pilgrim Street and Market (Newgate) Street had an interest in the pipe. Dated C13th.

The earliest reference is in 1225/6 during the reign of Henry III, when the king granted the friary a conduit from their well; in 1237 he gave them timber for the construction of their dormitory. The precinct lay on the east (west?) side of the north end of Pilgrim Street, and was bounded to the north by High Friar Street and Lane, to the west by the Nuns, and to the south by houses on the north side of High Bridge. A single reference suggests the church lay along the south side of High Friar Lane, and hence that there was a south cloister, but nothing else is known of the buildings. The friary was dissolved in 1539, at which time it accommodated a prior, 8 priests and 2 novices. The Franciscans were the first religious order to arrive in Newcastle. Dated C13th.

In 1307 the Carmelite friars left their first house on Wall Knoll for the almost empty house of the Friars of the Sack in the south-west corner of the town. Although they received 2 additional grants of land in C14 they lost a strip 297 ft x 99 ft for the town wall, ditch etc. Their precinct seems to have been bounded by Clavering Place (E), Hanover Street (S), Orchard Street (W), and somewhere beneath the railway (N). The house was suppressed in 1539. Excavation and observation has provided evidence for a church (probably nave with north aisle and aisleless quire and built by Friars of the Sack) under and south of Forth Street, a south cloister (73 ft square with lean-to walks) under the Royal Mail car park, and east range (with chapter house) under existing buildings, and a south range (with slype) also under the car park. A fragment of medieval window tracery with hollow chamfer and a glazing groove was taken out of the penning of the roadway, at the site of the White Friars on Forth Street, around 80ft from the south-west corner of the Clavering Place railway arch abutment. It had been reused. Donated to the Society of Antiquaries in 1925 by the Corporation of Newcastle. The church was probably aisleless, it certainly had no south aisle. The cloister had lean-to walks. The friary was suppressed in 1539 and the site was for a time developed as a private house. Dated C14th.

The earliest reference to the Friars of the Sack is 1266 when Henry III granted them the Cunstable-galgarthe for the enlargement of their close. In 1300 there were only 3 friars left, and in 1307 just one. The Carmelite friars were therefore allowed in that year to transfer to this site from the first house on Wall Knoll. Because of this transfer it is known that the Friars of the Sack had settled in the south-west corner of the town. Their house lay between the later Clavering Place (W), and Orchard Street (E), and extended from somewhere south of the Postern to the top of the river bank. Excavation in 1965/67 produced only one building likely to be theirs, the church, which lay under and south of the modern Forth Street. Excavations in 2008 found the east end of the quire, the east range of the cloister, a wattle lined latrine pit, several inhumations and general charnel. There more graves under the chapter house. The friars had rotten teeth indicating a rich diet. One friar had been buried on his side. Most burials had no coffins. There was one coffin made of two planks. The skeleton was in a supine position with his arms by his side. A piece of iron coffin furniture was recovered. The bones had been disturbed either by coffin lid collapse or by animals. There was a circular stone filled pit, a stone flagged path and a rectangular well built with stone, a medieval drain, a cess pit and a circular well which was unstable as it had been built onto cobbles. Between the end wall of the 19th century Presbyterian minister's house (see HER 7687) and the casino car park wall there was a 6 inch gap in which was found the entranceway into the medieval chapter house. Finds included 13th century pottery, a lead plumb bob, a pendant seal box. Dated C13th.

From 1262 to 1307 there was a Carmelite friary on Wall Knoll. The site was then apparently left vacant until 1360 when it was granted by the friars to William Acton to found a hospital in honour of the Holy Trinity for a warden, 2 priest brothers, 3 clerks to teach in the school and instruct in the chapel, and 3 poor and infirm persons. The house was suppressed in 1539 when it contained only a "prior". The site of the buildings is not known, nor how much of the friary remained for the Trinitarians to use, and what they may have built themselves. Oliver thought fragments survived in 1831, but it seems impossible that anything remained after the making of City Road. In 1881 S. Holmes claimed to have seen the remains of monastic buildings forming the bases of the brick houses and stables built upon them. These had portions of door and window casings and some tracery of the chapel windows. On digging through the deep covering of rubbish, he found the rich soil of the former monastery gardens with an apple tree in-situ which had been buried and at its foot a buried cat and dog. He also found human bones (HER 11971). The friary was suppressed in 1539 and the site passed to the mayor and burgesses. Dated C14th.

In 1262 John of Byker founded a Carmelite friary on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, then part of Byker but incorporated into Newcastle in 1298/9. The site was enlarged in 1277, and again before 1285, the precinct eventually including the whole of Wall Knoll and extending east beyond the town wall, though not necessarily in the time of the Carmelites. In 1300 the mayor and burgesses gave notice of their intention to build the town wall across the precinct; by 1307 the wall had been built and the friars departed. The site of the friary buildings is not known, nor is it known how much - if any - of the house was damaged by the construction of the wall though the house was reusable by the Trinitarians. Oliver thought fragments survived in 1831, but it seems impossible that anything remained after the making of City Road. The Carmelites were given permission to close the Crossway (street) on their site (NCH Vol 13, p 270). Dated C13th.