Visited in 1986. Farm buildings are on 3 sides of a yard with a gap at the SW corner and no range on the east side. The farmhouse is detached. The gate has fine stone posts. The house is 2-storey, built of stone with random ashlar. It has a slate roof, ceramic ridge, sash windows and a rather grand south door beneath an arched recess and two brick chimney stacks. There is a single story stone stable with slate roof. It has a cement floor and few internal fittings. A number of blocked or converted openings and a surviving brick partition. An ashlar byre with 6 double stalls for 2 cows each. A 2-storey stone rubble cart shed with 2 arches. A hay loft above. A single storey byre, originally a threshing barn. A stone circular gingang. The slates had gone but the timber roof remained. The gingang and large byre seem earlier than the adjoining cartshed. This could be because the farmer converted from arable to dairy farming, converting the threshing barn to a byre. The house was a late addition, perhaps paid for with compensation received for losing arable land to local builders, and presumably replacing an older property {1}.

A very restored farm. 2-storey stone rubble with pantile roof. The 2 upper south windows have traces of a central mullion and monolithic jambs. The lintels of the lower 2 have been renewed. Brick chimney in east gable. The west gable is constructed of triangular stones in the edges. The barn and house, though now continuous, appear awkwardly joined together. The lower part of the south wall is boulder-like and looks earlier and different. A linear farm? Cart shed - single arch with window on each side. Stone rubble with asbestos roof {1}. Mid 18th century with alterations. Sandstone rubble with large quoins. Roof renewed with pantiles. Chamfered stone surrounds renewed casements with glazing bars; low gable parapet formed by irregular stones. Interior said to contain heck post, screen and settle to fireside in kitchen. Seats to splayed windows in all rooms. Chimney in ground floor has corniced mantel shelf over wide square stone chimney-piece {2}.

This glasshouse is recorded as standing in 1692 by Brand. The Henzell and Tyzack families worked a glasshouse here from as early as 1686. Broad glass was the main product. For some years before 1772, the broad glasshouse was worked by Matthew Ridley and Co. The date of the transfer of the business from the Henzell and Tyzacks to the Ridleys was between 1754 and 1760. In 1772, Ridley and Co converted the glasshouse into a plate glass factory. In June 1773 the glasshouse was badly damaged by fire. Plate glass was not being made at Howdon in 1776, because there was only one plate glasshouse on the Tyne at that time, Cooksons (SMR 2340). A reference to Joseph Tyzack, broad glass maker, in 1781, suggests that the old manufacture was restarted {1}. If the works were rebuilt after the fire, they were no longer under Ridley's auspices. Sir Matthew Ridley was M.P. for Morpeth. His fire-stone quarries at Blyth supplied the glass industry {2}.

Industrial production of glass was commenced on Tyneside by Sir Robert Mansell, Treasurer of the Navy and later Vice-Admiral of England, in 1617. National restrictions had been imposed on the use of wood as a fuel for glassmaking, and an alternative form of fuel, coal, was available on the Tyne. Mansell had obtained a patent for making glass with coal in 1615. Sand for glassmaking was brought to the Tyne as ballast. Mansell prospered and by 1624 had an output of 6,000 to 8,000 cwts of finished glassware per year and three glasshouses on the original site. He made bottles, window glass, mirror glass, tumblers and spectacle glass. In 1623 Mansell was granted the sole right to carry on the glass industry in England. The glass produced was said to be cloudy and poor quality but Mansell's monopoly lasted until the civil war when others entered the field. Sir Robert Mansell died in 1653 but the Mansell family remained in business until 1679, when the glasshouses changed hands (see HER 1913-5).

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. Glass waste including cylinder edge pieces, offcuts from quarry cutting, glaziers waste was found west of the town wall during excavations at Close Gate in 1989.

In 1693 William (or Wilhelm) Bertram, a steelmaker from Remscheid in Germany, was shipwrecked and stranded on the north Durham coast. A few years later he was reported to be charge of steelmaking at a furnace in Newcastle, possibly owned by Hayford. Evidence suggests that the works were in the region of The Close. R.R. Angerstein left a sketch of this area in 1753. Bertram later transferred to Blackhall Mill (HER 1017). The furnace at Newcastle was let to a Mr Hall before 1753. He acquired a second furnace of a similar size, presumably on the same site. It measured 132 inches x 32 inches x 22 inches, each chest holding 5 tons of iron. The charcoal used was from juniper or alder (unusual choice). Firing lasted from 5 to 6 days and used £2 worth of coal. The two workers each received 7s 6d per week. The furnaces between them consumed about 150 tons annually of Dannemora iron, costing £21 per ton. Fifteen years later the steel from Newcastle and Blackhall Mill still held the reputation of being the best in England. Robsahm's account of 1761 reports on the activities of Mr Hodgson of The Close, Newcastle, who had a foundry and some steel furnaces. Angerstein had associated Derwentcote furnace with the name of Hodgson eight years previously. By 1811 the Newcastle furnaces were in the care of the Cookson family. In 1851 T. Cookson and Company are listed as steelmakers in The Close and at Forth Banks. In 1853 they are only listed as ironfounders at South Street. On the 1863 list they are only listed at Derwentcote. There is a foundry shown on The Close on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. It can only be concluded that the Newcastle furnace was abandoned between 1851 and 1853.

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map.

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map.

Shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. Built in 1850s for Harvey and Davy tobacco company who made 'Golden Fleck' tobacco. The building follows the curve of the road, sitting on a plinth of coursed, dressed sandstone, the building is characterised by the fenestration detail with arched openings at ground floor and sashes on the upper floors. The visual quality of this building has been reduced through the installation of modern, metal framed mirrored windows in the upper floors. Incorporates a Unitarian Chapel of 1720 (HER 7688). The tobacco factory was taken over by the British Electrical Manufacturing Company of Newcastle upon Tyne, (which was founded in 1893) in 1919 as their head office. They had previously been located in St. Nicholas Buildings. The BEMCO company was formed by Messrs Goolden and Penlington to supply electrical equipment to industries. They were a purchasing company for the Electrical Coal Cutting Contract Corporation (one of the first organisations in the world to cut coal by electricity). In 1902, there were two new partners - Robert and Herbert Barkes. Branches were opened in Sunderland in 1905 and in London by 1907. In 1908 the company's name was changed to The British Electrical and Manufacturing Company. In 1910 the Barkes brothers became the sole owners. BEMCO supplied electrical materials, such as lamps, switches, switchgear, cables and signalling equipment, to collieries, shipyards, steel works and railways. In 1919, the same year that BEMCO moved to Clavering Place, a further branch was opened in Glasgow. Recorded in 2003 by The Archaeological Practice and in 2007 and 2008 by Archaeological Services University of Durham. Demolished in 2008. An unexpected basement level was found during archaeological excavations in 2008, which contained drive wheels of unknown function. Oral evidence suggests the building was used at one time as a bacon curing factory. Lots of metal pins were found in the basement. There were lots of drains above the cellar suggesting a wet activity. Tobacco manufacture needed steam.

The Hanover Square Brewery occupied ground between the southern part of Hanover Square (South) and the city walls. Bennison (2000) says it originated in 1728. It was built on land that had previously been used for gardens between the former Cookson’s House (later St Nicholas’s Mission School) and Hanover Street. In 1836 the owner Joseph Armstrong gave a dinner party for 16 people inside his new mash tun! {Bennison 1995}. Robert Fletcher owned the brewery from 1850 until 1881. John Buchanan took over the brewery in 1883. He created a modern tower brewery covering 2000 square feet. The Northern Clubs Federation Brewery Ltd. took over the lease for the premises in 1931 and extensive redevelopment of the site ensued. By 1939 they had opened a new four storey block and a storage cellar. A new brewhouse was built in 1957. In 1965 new bottling halls, wine and spirits stores and an office block were built in Orchard Street and Forth Street. The Federation Brewery moved to their new brewery at Dunston in 1980.