This long-gone corner of Newcastle is pictured in the 1880s, the photographer was standing at the lower end of Pilgrim Street looking towards Dog Bank in the centre of the shot. Every building in the photo was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century.
It’s difficult to give a precise date when the photo was taken, but there is a clue which helps narrow it down. The building on the left was the Driller’s Arms and we can see part of the bar through the door, a rare glimpse inside a local Victorian boozer. The landlord’s name, John Patterson, is above the door; he ran the place from 1887 until the licence was withdrawn by the magistrates in September 1889.
The property is listed in street directories as a “beer retailer” from the early 1860s onwards, when it was run by a Londoner called Murdoch McKenzie Dumble. Beer retailers had a licence from the magistrates to sell beer, but not spirits and wine, which required a full pub licence. The Dumbles sold beer there for over two decades, then it changed hands a couple of times before Patterson took it on.
Dog Bank was a poor part of town, its properties were a mix of lodging houses and secondhand clothes shops. Patrick Sherry’s shop was next door to the Driller’s Arms, you can see his wares hanging from the wall. He also drove a hansom cab, until he was fined ten shillings for being drunk in charge of it.
The lodging houses on Dog Bank provided low quality accommodation for single men and the area could get very rowdy in the evenings. Others lived in slum housing that had been converted into single-room tenements. It was a similar situation a few yards away in Silver Street so Newcastle Council decided to consolidate the men in a huge new building called Rowton House, which could house 250 of them in much safer and cleaner conditions.
Demolition of the lodging houses and slums on Dog Bank and Silver Street began in 1900, and Rowton House was opened for business on Christmas Day, 1906.