This triumphal arch was built on Grey Street in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales, who were visiting Newcastle on August 20th, 1884. Several of these temporary arches spanned the streets of the city that day, but this was the only one to be photographed.
Royal visits to Newcastle were rare in the nineteenth century, there is a legend that Queen Victoria hated the place after Prince Albert was supposedly presented with a bill for a meal they ate at the opening ceremony for the Central Station. Nevertheless, the people of Newcastle loved royalty, and went to great lengths to decorate the streets in anticipation of the Prince and Princesses’s procession through the city.
The royal couple were guests of the local industrialist William Armstrong and stayed at his home at Cragside, near Rothbury, before taking the train into Newcastle where they spent a busy day. They found time to perform the opening ceremonies for the Hancock Museum, the Free Library on New Bridge Street, and Jesmond Dene, which Armstrong had recently gifted to Newcastle.
The arch on Grey Street was 54 feet high, it was made with wood and plaster and painted cream. It was kept simple so as not to impede the view of the finest street in the country, but there were no such restraints on the arches elsewhere in town. The one on Neville Street was designed to resemble the ancient gateway to Blackfriars Monastery and was created by scenery painters from the Tyne Theatre, other arches at the bottom of Shields Road in Byker and on New Bridge Street were also decorated extravagantly.
But the prize for the best arch must surely go to the one at the bottom of Grainger Street West, although it’s likely the royal couple would have needed an interpreter to explain the Geordie words that appeared on it. As they approached the arch they’d have seen “Welcome To Canny Newcassell” painted on it, with “Bless The Canny Royal Bairns” on the other side.
Presumably the Prince of Wales enjoyed his visit to Newcastle, he returned three years later to attend the Royal Agricultural Show on the Town Moor.