North Shields Heritage Trail

The crest and motto from the old Tynemouth Parish reflect how people from hereabouts have traditionally made their living. North Shields began as a fishing village, established by the Monks of Tynemouth Priory in the 13th century, and the wooden quays erected to unload the fish soon began to be used for shipping out coal…

This part of North Shields was once a very busy place. This area was the towns Market Place and nearby Low Street was known as the ‘Bull Ring’ from the practice of bull baiting which is said to have gone on there in the 17th century. The Northumberland Arms. The large, imposing building at the…

Who can estimate the amount of immoral conversation that passes, the unlawful schemes plotted, or the low, filthy literature read in common lodging houses and the intemperance that prevails in this nest of vice?’ So wrote the Shields Daily News in 1855, speaking about the warren of streets and alleyways which made up this part…

Just around the corner is an old dry dock which once belonged to the Shields Dry Dock and Engineering Company Ltd. However it quickly became known locally as ‘The Haddock Shop’ as it specialised in the building and repair of steam trawlers. Since the development of the Dolphin Quays, ‘the Haddock Shop’ has become a…

he curved female figure which stands outside ‘The Prince of Wales Tavern’ is the latest in a series which have stood on that spot, the entrance to Customs House Quay, for much of the last 200 years. The original ‘Wooden Dolly’ was the figurehead of a collier brig named the’Alexander and Margaret’ which was attacked…

The riverside area of the oldest part of North Shields. The ‘Low Town’ refers to the settlement that grew up along the river, between the Low Lights in the east and the Bull Ring in the west. There were over 100 inns and taverns in ‘Low Town’, many notorious in their day and described as…

Peggy’s Hole is named after a naval vessel, The Peggy which moored near the entrance to the ‘Gut’, where the fishing boats land their catch. During the French Wars at the end of the 18th century, North and South Shields were regular victims of Press Gang raids, which were once a common occurrence on the…

Fishing has been the lifeblood of North Shields since the 13th century when the monks of Tynemouth Priory gave permission for a quay to be built here. At that time, the fishermen were catching lampreys, smelt, sprat, conger eels, coal-fish and skate but by the year 1530, boats were sailing as far as Icelandic waters…

Concealed for many years by the infrastructure and vibrant activity of the bustling Fish Quay. It is perhaps surprising that many will have missed the significance of the walls and moot of this scheduled ancient monument. In fact Clifford’s Fort is one of the earliest surviving coastal batteries in Britain. Originally this area was a…

The ‘Black Middens’ are a set of notorious rocks which lie at the mouth of the Tyne, below the cliffs at Tynemouth. Many vessels have foundered there over the centuries forced onto the rocks, which are hidden at high tide, by strong southerly winds and currents. Perhaps the most memorable shipwreck occurred in the late…

North Shields was originally restricted to a narrow strip of land along the riverside because of the steep bank which ran along behind and hemmed it in. Eventually the town became too overcrowded and in the 18th century, buildings began to be erected on the plateau, 60 feet above the old, tightly packed and insanitary…

The best salmon river in england. There is much social and industrial history based around the River Tyne that it is often easy to forget that it is, first and foremost, a natural feature and home to a wide range of wildlife. As early as the eighth century, the river was described by the Venerable…

Although this area now represents the bustling centre of North Shields, it should not be forgotten that throughout most of its history, the town consisted only of a narrow strip of land running along the riverside, between the Fish Quay and the ‘Bullring’, near the current passenger ferry landing. It was only in the 18th…

Northumberland Square was designed to be the centrepiece of North Shields ‘new town’ as it spreads its wings from the confines of the older riverside area in the first half of the 19th century. This wide, open space, ringed by elegant Georgian town houses, was described by Nikolaus Pevsner in his 1957 book ‘The Building…

Several natives of North Shields have distinguished themselves in the arts, amongst them the illustrator and water-colorist Myles Birket Foster. He was born here in 1825, though he moved to London as a child. He became particularly well-known for his landscapes and produced work for many important periodicals of the Victorian age, such as ‘Punch’…

The motto ‘Our Harvest is from the Deep’ is taken from the old borough crest. It refers to the main two pillars of North Shields’ traditional economy – fishing and coal mining. Both are extremely tough occupations and so, historically, the townsfolk have needed to be very hardy and there have been many times when…