J Oswald and Sons for Richard Charlton, 1903. A rebuild of an earlier pub (in the mid 1850s John Hamilton brewed behind the old Newcastle Arms). Designed by the most prolific pub architects on Tyneside. The whole front is treated as a single gable end with a wide curved glazed window with columns and two doors on the ground floor, then an eight light window in a moulded stone frame on the next floor and on the second floor the centrepiece - a curved stone bay window with flanking windows, a stone cornice and above sill, a brick gable with stone scroll-work, pyramid finials and a date in ceramic tiles at the peak. A very full-blooded 1900s design which is largely intact. Noe a Tetley House.

Oliver, Leeson and Wood and others, c.1902. A powerful cliff-like terrace of five red engineering bricks and stone window surrounds and decorations. Some stonework remains on the ground floors, especially at each end of the terrace and particularly at Nos. 66-70 at the top. Although designed and built in five separate sections, the unity of the terrace is impressive. There are gables at the end of each section and dormers in-between. One section has decorative stone windows on the 3rd floor, while another has a fancy date stone on the upper floors - 1902 AD. A very urbane street, unmistakably of the early twentieth century. A windmill had been recorded on the site of Nos. 66-70 in 1830, and this was demolished to make way for these buildings.

No. 71 - M.K. Glass for J & Joel Intract, Auctioneers, c.1922. No. 87 - c.1860 warehouse, refaced c.1895 by Frank Rich and again in c.1936 by Glass, Harrison and Ash. An extraordinary pair of buildings. No. 71 - in the late19th century the Three Tuns Inn stood on this site, a low two storey pantiled building of early19th century origin. It was refurbished in 1895, but its licence removed in 1906 because of immoral and disorderly customers. The building stood vacant for almost 20 years until it was demolished in 1922. The grandly tiled furniture emporium we see today was then built, and used by the Co-operative Stores. No. 87 - the present building was built as two floors of warehousing and three floors of multi-storey stables probably in the 1860s. In 1895 Frank Rich, architect, remodelled the building into four taller floors with shops and warehousing, and refaced it with decorative stone window surrounds, pediments and stone detailing at the eaves - it looked more like a gentleman's residence than a warehouse. In 1936 it was refaced again - in the period treatment and fluid design we see today. Behind this façade, the shell of the older building survives even down to the fine stone chimney stacks. The side and rear have not been refaced. The properties were taken over by Barker and Stonehouse in the late 1970s. They managed to create a unity out of the two very different buildings, demonstrating the difference between early 1920s and mid 1930s retail frontages.

Matthew Horner Graham for George G Laidlaw, c.1901. Built as a handsome Edwardian medicines manufactory and offices, the name Galen being chosen as he was a famous medieval medical scientist. Graham, the architect, had gained his experience under T Oliver and R I Johnson, both excellent local architects, and had been responsible for the stately extension of the County Hotel in Neville Street four years earlier. Galen House is a building of great bulk built in the best of English Victorian industrial tradition. Red brick piers rise up from an enormously tall ground floor of stone arches and columns. Tall bay windows. Each corner of the roof has a squat octagonal tower with pierced round windows. Now converted into flats.

Probably early C19. This intriguing little building on the corner of Fenkle Street and Cross Street was probably built as a house, but by the late 19th century had become the Crystal Fountain Inn. The decorative plasterwork around the windows and above the ground floor, as well as fancy finials at the corners of the roof (now gone) probably all date from this time and use. The inn closed in 1892 and since then it has been in use as a Chinese supermarket. External window shutters have been added {1}. This Victorian building is significant as one of the earliest Chinese supermarkets in Newcastle. Its original use was as a public house named Crystal Fountain Inn until 1892, after which it has always been used for commercial use. This three storey corner building has arched shaped plaster decoration on its ground floor. Now Tsang Food.

The first Cross House was a C17 brick mansion which was once the home of Ralph Carr, who founded the first bank in Newcastle in 1755. It became a vicarage for St John's Church and then was modified and extended for commercial purposes. It was demolished about 1900 to widen Westgate Road. Photograph from 1856 - lay perpendicular to Westgate Road at the junction to Fenkle Street. The building had convex-concave gable end. Three windowless dormer gables. Demolished before 1904. Brick, 3 storeys NCL 3067.
Cackett and Burns Dick designed the second Cross House in 1911-2. For this difficult triangular site they used the innovative reinforced concrete structural system patented by the Hennebique Company and developed on Tyneside. The ferro-concrete frame was clad in fashionable Portland stone which was used in contrasting smooth faced and heavily tooled surfaces. The narrow gable east end has twin chimney stacks in heavily tooled stone. The windows are plain and simple, except for two full height bay windows on Westgate Road frontage. There is a very heavily cornice at the fourth floor and decorative male and female figures on the narrow gable. Another fine building by excellent local architects that deserves better recognition. Unfortunately it is usually remembered only for the tragic fire on 23 December 1919. Famous Laskey had offices and film storage vaults in the basement. The fire possibly started when an electrical fault set fire to films. The fire spread up the stairs and lift shaft. Twelve people were killed, some by jumping off the roof. The film trade was blamed and Newcastle City adopted new regulations for film storage.

c. 1860. It would appear from the records that the Star is not an ancient pub. In 1899 only half of the ground floor was the Star, the rest being an access into the yard behind (Newcourt) and a shop owned by the Quin family. It was restructured internally in 1937 (acquired by Bass in 1939) and again in the 1950s, when an ugly rendered pub-front was added. The present applied front to the upper floors, and altered pub front, in cream and black, is a vast improvement on the 1950s scheme. Over the years the pub has received attention from several respected local pub architects, including J. Oswald and Sons, but little evidence of period input remains on the outside.

c. 1900 for Lockhart's Cocoa Rooms. Mr Robert Lockhart first introduced his Cocoa Rooms to Liverpool in 1876 as value-for-money cafes. He was interested in the temperance movement of the time, and many people saw the Cocoa Rooms as an alternative to public houses for refreshment. This site was occupied by Lockhart by 1884 (he had other premises in the town including one on Neville Street). The old building on Westgate Road must have become inadequate by the turn of the century as Lockhart replaced it with the stone building we see today. Although it has a plain, 3-bay first floor, there are all manner of animated shapes and scrolls above it. The roof is of Westmorland slate. It is unique and wonderfully extrovert. Lockhart's initials (L & Co) are carved on the ornamental shield below the bowl-finial. The modern ground floor pays no attention to what is above. Presently used as a Salsa Bar.

Former Temperance Hall. Thompson and Dunn for R. Flowers, c.1892. A pleasant brick front with stone window sills and surrounds with keystones, four modified dormers and an insensitively altered ground floor. Remarkably complete interior including two staircases, cast iron columns and large top-lit upper floor rooms with huge decorative roof beams. This was originally the ceiling of the two storey auction room which by 1910 had become a public auditorium in use as the Temperance Memorial Hall {1}. Ryder suggests it was built in the 1880s. Large hall set back from the street, brick, steel-framed. Four-storeyed front block with flush ashlar porch and embattled turrets. Large polygonal hall behind with galleries. In use as the Salvation Army City Temple from the 1880s until 2009. An important structure, now empty.

Cackett and Burns Dick for Robert Sinclair Tobacco Co. Ltd. 1913 and 1919. The 1913 building round the corner on Blenheim Street is a four storey brick warehouse and factory. It is plain except for three curved headed windows at first floor front, a stone cornice with heavy brackets and half finials at the corners, the company name in mosaic and the roof top metal rail. Unfortunately a three bay wide set of vehicular doors has been inserted. Business prospered and in 1919 the company built a huge new warehouse and offices onto Westgate Road, using the same architectural practice. This is altogether a more grand affair in white Portland stone, with two stone floors with pronounced joints, massive three storey square columns, and a heavy cornice topped by five square dormers. The style was vaguely Egyptian with stylised acanthus leaves at the top of the columns and decorative metal panels between. The building was converted into flats in the late 1980s. Another grand composition that deserves better recognition.