It’s the summer of 1883 in this photo and the builders are taking a tea break during the renovation of Newcastle’s Black Gate. Their work almost certainly saved it from collapse; nowadays it’s part of the city’s substantial collection of medieval buildings and is Grade I listed.
Newcastle was a frontier town in the centuries-long wars with the Scots, and King Henry III beefed up the Castle’s defences by adding the Black Gate around 1250. It was the principal entrance to the Castle complex and is contemporary with Westminster Abbey, which Henry built at the same time. But the gate became strategically redundant with the Acts of Union in 1707, which united England and Scotland, and it fell into disrepair.
The upper part of the building collapsed in 1739 and was rebuilt with a mishmash of brick and stone, and another floor was added with a tiled roof. In later years it became the centre of a small shanty town of shops, pubs and houses that clung to its walls. There was little public interest in this ancient wreck and there was talk of letting it fall down. But the opening of the High Level Bridge in 1849 meant that most people entering Newcastle from the south now went past it, and it became an embarrassment.
The Black Gate was owned by Newcastle Corporation which rented it out as a tenement, and according to the 1851 Census, there were 60 people living in it. The adjoining buildings were removed in 1866 when St Nicholas Street was built, so there was no disguising its plight. The Corporation was now under pressure to do something with this eyesore, but they didn’t have the money to restore it.
Fortunately Newcastle’s Society of Antiquaries was looking for premises to use as a museum. The Society was established in 1813 to preserve the town’s buildings and relics, and had already renovated the Castle Keep. They used the Keep to store and display their collection of Roman and medieval artefacts, but the dark and dingy building wasn’t ideal.
The Society was sniffy about dealing with the Corporation after the latter demolished the Carliol Tower to build the Central Library on New Bridge Street in 1880, so they refused to donate their collection of books to it. But an agreement was struck between the two in August 1883 whereby they leased the Black Gate from the Corporation on condition the Society paid for its restoration and subsequent upkeep.
Work began immediately, which is when this photo was taken. It can be dated by a poster on one of the fences for a Venetian Fete in Saltwell Park on August 18th, 1883. The building was gutted and new floors installed at a cost of £1,700, with some of the money raised from their members and the rest by public subscription. The museum opened on March 4th, 1885.
The Black Gate had survived the building of the enormous railway viaduct next to it in the 1840s, and the enlargement of the viaduct in the 1890s, and entered the 20th century in good fettle. Its future was secured in 1954 when it was designated a Grade I Listed Building. In the 1960s the Castle Keep and Black Gate became one of four places of historical and architectural importance in Newcastle, the first conservation areas of this type in the country.
Photo credit: William Embleton Collection.