The black and white photo shows a massive retaining wall under construction in 1909 near the mouth of the Ouseburn, the colour photo shows the same scene today for comparison.
Newcastle Corporation was empowered by an Act of Parliament in 1904 to improve the Quayside and extend it beyond the Ouseburn, which was to be the largest single engineering project that had been undertaken in the city. Work commenced in 1906 and the ancient Glasshouse Bridge over the Ouseburn was blown up with dynamite and replaced, connecting the old quay with the new one.
The retaining wall marked the northern edge of the new quay, holding back the steep ground above. It incorporated a new road linking the quay to St Lawrence Road and Walker Road. This road led up to the Free Trade Inn — you can just make out part of the landlord’s name, Thomas Taylor, painted on the roof in the first photo.
It was originally one of several hundred homes in Newcastle where the householder had been granted a license to brew beer and sell it to their neighbours. This was a result of Parliament passing the Beer Act in 1830, in an attempt to wean the public off hard liquor.
Many of these beer houses were eventually bought by big breweries and became pubs. The White Lion Brewery demolished this one and built the present building in 1896, but the Free Trade didn’t get a full pub licence until 1963.
The big industrial building on the left of the first photo belonged to a metal polish company called Mepo, they had just been taken over by Reckitt & Sons, manufacturers of Brasso and similar cleaning products. The building remained there until the 1970s, the site is now a landscaped hill between the Free Trade and the Tyne pub.