The earliest reference to this market street is a deed of the early C13 - a grant by David, son of Nicholas of Newcastle, to John of Pampdene… of four shillings annual rent for land in the market street. In 1401 comes the first reference to Cloth Market Gate (where gate means street). Clathmerketgit (1414), Clathmarket (1430), Clothmarket strete (1447), la Cloth Market (1491). Middle Street (Medegate 1292, medius vicus 1447 and Milne Borne 1578) ran between the buildings on Cloth Market and Groat Market. Middle Street was subdivided into three - Skinnergate (1310) - vicus pellipariorum (1310), bothae pellipariorum (1323), le Schinnergate and le Skinnergate (1348-50), la Skynnergate (1393), Skynnergate (1430 and 1447) - at the top, Spurriergate (1447) - Sporiourrowe (1447) - means spur makers, the Stays (1268-9), le Stathes (1342) - in the middle and Saddlegate (1447) at the bottom. In the mid C16, Midle Street was known as Glovergate. The medieval Cloth Market became the Flesh Market in the seventeenth century until 1808 (when a new special-purpose Butcher Market was built on what is now Grey Street. On 4th April 1677, the town council granted to Jane Lewen, widow, and Richard Harbottle, cordwainer of the weigh house, "Flesh Shammells" (shambles or benches). John Bourne (1736) reported that the flesh market was held every Saturday, supplying provisions to thousands of people including staithmen, pit men, keelmen and wrights and also ships. From 1829 it was officially known once again as the Cloth Market, as it was in the middle ages. It gradually became less occupied with houses and became more commercial with many public houses - some still survive. The small houses in the yards leading back from the street became workshops and warehouses. The Cloth Market is unexpectedly quaint with its varied architectural styles, scales and materials, all of regular medieval burgage plot widths. Up until 1855 it was a proper two-sided street. The Old Town Hall was built on the western side in 1855 (and demolished in the early 1970s). Later development between Cloth and Groat Markets was a result of temporary colonisation of the market space by stall-holders which eventually led to permanent structures. Up to 1838, when a new corn exchange was built across it, an old street called Middle Street ran parallel to and between Cloth and Groat Markets. The final nail in the coffin for this market area was Grainger's innovative covered multi-purpose market of 1835. We do not know who lay out the present triangular area known as the Bigg/Groat/Cloth Markets, but the deliberateness is evident in its simple geometric shape and in the regularity of the residential and crafts plots that still radiate from it, particularly along the east side of Cloth Market. The survival of so many of these burgage plots in an industrial City such as Newcastle is truly remarkable. Dated C13th.

Collingwood Street was built by Newcastle Corporation in 1809 to link Cloth Market to Westgate Road to open up the older medieval parts of Newcastle. This street, like Mosley Street, enjoyed the growth of national financial institutions at the end of the C19. Its name commemorates Lord Collingwood, the local hero of Trafalgar, who was born the son of a Newcastle merchant in 1748 in a house next to St. Nicholas' Cathedral. In 1807 when a cellar was being built in the intended new street, a fragment of the Roman Wall was recorded. Another section was reported when foundations of houses were being built in 1810. In 1853 when a drain from the Turf Hotel was being renewed, another supposed section of Hadrian's Wall was recorded. When shafts were sunk in Collingwood Street in 1890 a number of stones were found which looked like facing stones from Hadrian's Wall. In 1900 during excavations in Collingwood Street for water pipes, the Roman Wall was said to have been revealed, running from Denton Chare to the Nun's Field. It was 10ft wide. Caution - the Collingwood Street walls probably in fact related to the streets and burgages which pre-dated the creation of Collingwood Street. The original brick houses have been replaced with banks and offices, many now pubs and clubs.

This was Grainger's last street. A considerable portion of it was unfinished in 1845. Described as an outsider to the main scheme, its purpose was to link the western roads out of Newcastle to Eldon Square and Blackett Street. It is inferior in design and materials to Grainger Street, and much inferior to Grey Street. It was built as single houses of three window bays wide above shops, with a staircase entrance directly off the street at one side. It was named in honour of John Clayton (1792-1890) Newcastle's Town Clerk, who contributed so much to the financial management of Grainger's scheme and Richard Grainger's own affairs. McCombie - plain facades and much less ordering into symmetrical compositions. Less elaborate architecturally than Grainger's other streets. Clayton Street ran from Blackett Street, crossing medieval Newgate Street, to reach Westgate Road. Clayton Street West continued south-west to the line of Neville Street, with houses and offices, including that of Grainger himself.

Sister street to Nelson Street having a range of Grainger Market on one side, and an identical public house at the western end. The name comes from the Benedictine Nunnery dedicated to St Bartholomew that used to occupy the site on which this street and Grainger Market now stand.

Richard Grainger's second quality street designed to join Grey Street at one end and to provide a direct link with the busy Bigg Market at the other. Opened in the 1830s. The section beyond Bigg Market stayed as St. John's Lane until 1869-70 when it was extended as a link to the Central Station and called Grainger Street West. Grainger had been dead for eight years by then. Grainger gave Newcastle the first planned city centre in the country.

This street follows the line of the early lane that ran outside the Town Wall between the New Gate and the Pilgrim Gate. The walls were removed in 18th century and the street improved by Richard Grainger in 1824 and named Blackett Street. It was named after John Erasmus Blackett (1728-1814) who was Newcastle's mayor four times in 18th century and was father-in-law of Lord Collingwood. The stones from the town wall were said to have been used to build the main sewer in Blackett Street. Anderson Place (HER 4931) which stood nearby until Grainger demolished it in 1835 was the home of a branch of the Blackett family between 1675 and 1782. Grainger and his principal architect John Dobson erected several fine buildings in the street. It was planned primarily as a residential street. At the junction of Blackett Street and High Friar Street they built St. James Chapel, which opened in 1826. The Northern Academy of Arts (HER 6985) opened in June 1828. A Music Hall was built in 1830. The magnificent YMCA building opened in 1900. There were several hospitals in Blackett Street over the years - a Hospital for Diseases of the Skin from 1873 to 1900, a Hospital for Women 1891 to 1900 and an Ear, Nose and Throat unit 1895 to 1900. In the early 1880s there was also a workshop for the adult blind. McCombie - originated in John Dobson's 1815 survey for a street to replace the lane along the town wall. This section of wall was demolished in 1823 and Blackett Street built the following year. It featured terraces of brick houses by either Thomas Oliver or John Dobson. None survive. On the north side part of Thomas Oliver's Eldon Square (elevations by John Dobson) survives. Blackett Street is now largely a traffic route flanked by the two blocks of Eldon Square shopping centre, 1969-70 by Chapman Taylor & Partners and City Planning Officer, Wilfred Burns.

First reference to "vicus peregrinorum" is around 1230. It is known as Pilgrim Street from C14 - the only Medieval route in Newcastle to be termed "street". It followed the east side of the Lort Burn, with All Saints Church (HER 1423) at the south end and Pilgrim Street Gate (HER 1549) at the north end. Its name has been traditionally been connected with the crowds of pilgrims who passed along it and through the Pilgrim Gate in the town walls, to visit St. Mary's Chapel in Jesmond. A Pilgrim's Inn in Pilgrim Street provided them with accommodation. There was a tenement in Pilgrim Street called le Cagh in 1447. Bourne reports that in 1736, the inn was held by Dean and Chapter of Durham, and belonged to Mr James Hargreaves. An alternative suggestion is that the pilgrims could have been visiting the house of the Grey Friars in the street itself, where the Francisans may have had the holy relics of St Francis their founder. He describes the suburb of Pilgrim Street as a well built street, with pretty houses (owned by merchants, hoastmen etc), in a most pleasant situation as if it were in the middle of gardens and fields, "which make it a delicious place in the summer season". There was a tenement called le Cagh in Pilgrim Street in 1447. The area was damaged in the Civil War. The street also had an agricultural purpose as in C17 a market for wheat and rye was held on Tuesdays and Saturdays (known as Wheat Market in 1495). The street enjoyed a boost in 1928 when the new Tyne Bridge was opened by King George V and the A1 traffic between London and Edinburgh was all channelled up Pilgrim Street. The upper section of the street up to the old Pilgrim Gate was redeveloped with new offices, public buildings and a super cinema. McCombie - Pilgrim Street Gate removed in 1811 to ease traffic. In 1835 Grainger partly redeveloped the west side. The railway viaduct cut across in 1849. Worswick Street broke into the east side circa 1870. Tyne Bridge of 1925-8 needed widened approach roads. Post-war town planning took traffic from the bridge to the Central Motorway East, bypassing the old town. For that scheme Dobson's Royal Arcade was sacrificed. No. 38 Pilgrim Street was JG Scott's Umbrella Shop, established 1837. Now 'Leaf' clothing. Dated C13th.

Mosley Street was built as a new east-west route from Pilgrim Street to the Cloth Market in 1784-5 by Act of Parliament 1784. It was designed by David Stephenson, architect of All Saint's Church. New houses were built along the route - some of these still survive (no 32/34). Mosley Street and adjacent Dean Street became the premier shopping and commercial thoroughfares of the Georgian town. The street was lined by three storey brick houses with Tyneside's first purpose-built shops with display windows. In 1788 the Theatre Royal was built in Mosley Street. In 1831 the street was said to be "principally occupied with large commodious and magnificent shops, offices and warerooms". At the end of 19th century Mosley Street was chosen as the location for regional branches of national banks and insurance companies who built large expensive premises. Its vies with Grey Street in its sheer quality of materials and excellence of individual designs. The first street in the world to be lit by gas in 1818 and then by the incandescent light bulb in 1881, invented by Sir Joseph Swan. Swan's shop was located at 15 Mosley Street. The street was named after Alderman Mosley who was instrumental in promoting the material improvement of Newcastle. McCombie - Newcastle's first post medieval street. Linked Pilgrim Street to the Cloth Market. In the late 19th century this became the business area of Newcastle and was much redeveloped, so little remains of Stephenson.

Long regarded as the finest street not just in Newcastle, but in the north. Some years after its completion in 1837, Prime Minister William Gladstone described it as Britain's "best modern street". John Dobson designed the south eastern section, but it is thought that John Wardle and George Walker designed the rest for Richard Grainger. The architectural style is Mediterranean classical, producing large palace-fronted terraces with plain sections alternating with pilastered pavilions and wings, has become nationally known as Tyneside Classical. The black grime that the stone acquired in Victorian times was removed in the early 1970s. Grey Street and Dean Street were formed by infilling the Lort Burn. McCombie calls it a 'magnificent composition in honey-coloured sandstone'. Forms a gentle rising curve leading the eye to the Theatre Royal and then the Earl Grey monument. In April 1840 Harriet Martineau wrote in The Penny Magazine: 'That this row of shops, warehouses and inns, sprung up within three years, should offer to the eye the same impression [as] a line of palaces in Vicenza, is a wonder which may well excite and sustain administration'. Originally called 'Upper Dean Street', later Grey Street in honour of Earl Grey. Continued the late 18th century alignment of Dean Street and created for the first time, a wide route from Tyne Bridge to the upper town. Part of Richard Grainger's grid of new streets which linked all strands of the medieval town. Grey Street was crossed east-west by Market Street, Hood Street and Shakespeare Street, Nun Street and Nelson Street. John Dobson designed the new Grainger Market, the elevations of Eldon Square and (according to the 1860s newspapers) Grey Street's east side between Mosley and Shakespeare Streets. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal block. John Wardle and George Walker of Grainger's office are thought to have designed all the rest of Grainger Town. The black grime which accumulated in Victorian times was removed in the 1970s.

c. 1824. These are the only survivors of the two-storey three long terraces begun in 1824 that made up the original Stowell Street. From the front they are still recognisable as simple brick artisan's houses with two wide windows, one narrow window, a narrow door with fanlight above. The wedge-shaped window heads and shallow stone sills are still there too. At the rear they originally had open yards that led out to the narrow service lane immediately behind the town walls. On the opposite side of Stowell Street is the China Diner restaurant which, although it has been refaced several times and considerably extended to the rear, still has the general appearance of the 1820s houses. Nos. 38 to 46 are on the local list.