Sandgate, Three Bulls Head Public House. Large building on corner of Sandgate and the Quayside (Milkmarket). Owned by the Corporation when its licence was surrendered in 1881. It was a sailor's boarding house as well as a pub. Consuls sent wrecked sailors there. Demolished after 1910. Timber, 3 storeys

No. 33 Akenside Hill, birthplace of Mark Akenside the poet and physician. He was born above his father's shop on 9 November 1721. When he was seven, a butcher's cleaver fell on his foot, leaving him with a permanent limp. According to his contemporaries, Akenside did not have a particularly pleasant disposition and was not proud of his place of birth. He died in 1770 was buried in St. James Church, Westminster.
The house in which Akenside the poet was born is identifiable due to diamond shaped relief on the wall of the first floor. On north side of Akenside Hill (formerly Butcher Bank).
Timber, 3 storeys

Shown on second edition Ordnance Survey 10.56” to 1 mile revision. Seems to have been much reduced in frontage. George Henderson 1783 innkeeper, Thomas Bell 1777. Mr Henderson’s freehold against Bankside. Stone, 3 storeys. In 1973 an excavation was undertaken on the derelict site of the Duke of Cumberland. It was established that there had been only two buildings on this site. The first dated to the late 13th century and survived perhaps until the 17th century when it was replaced by the second building, the erstwhile Duke of Cumberland. This pub disappeared from the street directories at the very end of the 19th century. The buildings ran parallel with the street and their front walls corresponded with the inner edge of the present pavement. Both buildings may have extended uphill to the north. The later house had been truncated and had been given a new west wall as a result of the construction of the new High Level Bridge. House 1 probably had shops or workshops on the ground floor. Its earliest feature was the north or rear wall. In front of this the ground had been levelled up with layers of mason's chippings. Stakeholes survived in the top surface of the chippings. The front wall was built on this layer. There were three openings in the front wall. Each was 4 feet wide. In the 14th century the middle opening was blocked up and the building was divided by two partition walls into smaller rooms. No objects datable to the 15th century were found and there wasn't much 16th century material. The patches of chippings and mortar interspersed with thin layers of black trampled soil, and the discovery of a broken stone matrix for a monumental brass, perhaps suggests that this was a mason's workshop. This house was eventually demolished and replaced by house 2. The front and back walls were based on the lower courses of the earlier house. The second house was divided into two rooms. The west room had a timber floor. The east room had a sunken kiln. In the 19th century the kiln was filled in the whole house floored with flags, brick and concrete. The only evidence for the use of the building as a hostelry was two dominoes. The Duke of Cumberland closed in 1898.

Original photo in L373 N536P “Bruce’s School Vol 5”. Cable moulding can be seen around three sides of the ground floor and dormer windows; and around all four sides of both of the first floor windows. It can also be seen along the string course and at eaves level.
Stone, 2 storeys

Constructed in around 1649. wood.

Building known only from documentary references from late C14 and early C15. In 1392, Adam Tang, burgess, conveys to his wife Alice, the Poldhall… which extends from Melemarketgate to Westgate. In 1397 Thomas Robson, chaplain of Newcastle, gave the Polled Hall to William de Hoton of Brandon. In 1406 William de Hoton to Master John Payt, clerk, a tenement known as Poldhall. Dated C14th.

At rear of 27 Dean Street, middle of architrave above the door. The "exubererant" Cathedral buildings fronting on to Dean Street, painted pink and cream, 1901 by Oliver, Leeson and Wood, have a mass of Jacobean-style detailing. At the rear of the building on St Nicholas' churchyard above the rear door is a large circular window and the architrave surmounting this has a dark grey painted sculpture of a rabbit set into the middle. The presence of this rabbit does not seem to have any relationship to the quiet cloistered atmosphere of St. Nicholas's churchyard. The animal has oversized canine teeth and a "manic expression on his face", which have led to the beast being popularly known as The Vampire Rabbit {1}. Christopher Goulding suggests that it is in fact a hare [in fact its ears were once much smaller and rabbit like - they have been lengthened to hare-like proportions since the late 1980s] and that it was an aesthetic joke on the part of the architects Oliver, Leeson and Wood. 'Mad' March hares were associated with the advent of Spring in pre-Christian times and were adopted as a symbol of Easter in Christian iconography and architecture. In British medieval churches there are carved hares playing bagpipes, chasing Green men and 'trinity of hares' running in circles. Where normally a gargoyle might be expected in buildings overlooking the Cathedral churchyard, the architects for the Cathedral Buildings used a grotesque hare. The hare may alternatively have been used as a reference to the work of the engraver of Thomas Bewick, who had a workshop in Cathedral Close. His work often featured hares. The cathedral's patron saint, St. Nicholas of Myra is also associated in some East European Christmas stories with woodland animals such as hares and deer {Christopher Goulding 2006}. An alternative explanation is that was placed there by the architect William H Wood as a reference to Sir George Hare Philipson, who was a physician at the Newcastle Royal Infirmary, providing the vampire association. Hare Philipson was also the founder of the University of Durham Masonic Lodge, and William H Wood was possibly a prominent freemason in the area. Hares appear in masonic symbolism {http://peacockshock.com/archives/cat_newcastle.html}. In 2008 the rabbit was repainted black.

Saxon grave marker found in 1981 during excavations at the Keep by Barbara Harbottle and M. Chard.

Grave marker reused as a Saxon grave cover. Originally a Roman milling stone. Found in 1981 during excavations at the Keep by Barbara Harbottle and M. Chard.

Corbel found in front of the Royal Arcade. Now in the Castle Keep.