and galleries in various directions, exist in the thickness | lower are pierced by the principal entrance and by a of the walls. Near the grand entrance is the chapel, an apartment, about forty-six feet by twenty, now shorn of its beauty, but once evidently a highly-adorned Norman edifice. The exterior wall of the fortress enclosed an area of more than three acres, and had a grand entrance, or portal, of thirty-six feet width. In Leland's time, Newcastle was regarded as one of the most strongly fortified towns in Europe. Although advancing population and commerce have ground most of these fortifications to dust, there still remain indications to show what they have been. The town wall was upwards of two miles in circuit, from twelve to twenty feet high, and eight feet thick: it was perforated by six or seven strongly-embattled gates, and defended by a large number of semicircular vaulted towers, and another series of quadrangular watch-towers. All the gates were still in existence about half a century ago; and of the very numerous towers, about a dozen yet survive, repaired and kept in order, and applied to various useful purposes-very burghal and commercial, but very anti-feudal. One is the Shipwrights' Hall, one the Masons' Hall; while the weavers, the colliers, the paviours, the glaziers, the plumbers, the armourers, the felt-makers, the curriers, the slaters, the tilers, the bricklayers, and the plasterers-have all succeeded in obtaining halls for their guild-meetings in some or other of these old wall-towers. We must return to the neighbourhood of the castle. Not far from the castle is St. Nicholas' Church-by far the most noteworthy in Newcastle: it is the church, and was for many generations the only one. If there were nothing else about it to attract attention, its spire-its delicately-supported spire-would be an object of interest; but it has all the claims of antiquity in its favour. This church, or at least a church on the same site, was built so long ago as 1097; and there is a record of the church having been destroyed by fire in 1216. The present structure was probably built soon after that period; but so numerous have been the alterations and 'improvements' that very little is left to speak of past ages, except the steeple. This steeple (Cut, No. 6) has been described by almost every writer who has spoken of Newcastle. It is believed to have been built in the time of Henry VI., before which period the square tower was crowned only by a battlement of open stone-work and embrasures; and it is also probable that the body of the church was newly roofed at the same period. As it at present stands, the church is cruciform, about two hundred and twenty feet long, by seventy wide. There is a choir, with seats, and a nave without seats, in the cathedral style. The interior generally, and the exterior of the body of the church, exhibit the effects of the numerous patchings to which the structure has been exposed; but the steeple remains true to its original character and design. It is upwards of two hundred feet in height. From the ground to the battlements it is divided into three stages, or architectural designs; the noble window. At the corners of the tower are bold buttresses, surmounted by octagonal turrets, with crocketted pinnacles. From the bases of these turrets spring four flying buttresses, of very graceful form, and crocketted at their edges; from their points of intersection, near the centre, rises a very light and elegant square lantern, with a crocketted pyramidal spire at its summit and crocketted pinnacles for its angles. The whole appearance of this crowning termination to the steeple is singularly graceful: it has been universally admired, and has been the model for the steeples of St. Giles at Edinburgh, St. Dunstan-inthe-East at London, and of many other churches. St. Nicholas' Church lies at the southern extremity of a wide line of street, which probably formed, at one time, the main artery through the town; and the names of Groat Market, Cloth Market, and Bigg Market, applied to different portions of its length, seem to indicate that the markets of Newcastle were once here held. Westward of the castle lies an irregular mass of streets, partly occupied by factories, partly by poor dwellings-nothing clean and nothing picturesque must be there looked for, until we get beyond the Forth Field and Forth Bank. This Forth, in the middle of the last century, was a fine open elevated spot of ground, from which an extensive view could be obtained in and around the town: it was the chief public walk of Newcastle, and was afterwards a bowling-green. But brick and stone, population and industry, have, by little and little, crept up and over the Forth, until hardly a vestige of it is left. The Cattle Market has seized upon one portion; the Infirmary on another; numerous rows of streets on other portions; while the gigantic new railway-station threatens to swallow up another notable area.. But when we advance north-west of the castle, and wend our way through Westgate Street, we ere long reach a tolerably pleasant open district of private streets, roads, and terraces. One of the most interesting buildings here is the Grammar School, which— even if it had no other claims to attention-would be noteworthy, as the place where Bishop Ridley, Mark Akenside, Lord Collingwood, Lord Eldon, and Lord Stowell, received their education. Mr. Twiss gives a multitude of Newcastle anecdotes relating to the two great lawyers in their schoolboy days. The following was told by Lord Eldon to his niece, Mrs. Forster: it reminds us of Sir Walter Scott's schoolboy battles with Green-breeks,' at Edinburgh :—“ I believe no boy was ever so much thrashed as I was. When we went to school we had to go by the Stock Bridge. In going to school we seldom had any time to spare; so Bill (the future Lord Stowell) and Harry used to run as hard as they could; but poor Jacky's legs not being so long or so strong, he was left behind. Now, you must know, there was eternal war waged between the Head School lads and all the boys of the other schools; so the Stockbriggers seized the oppor 6. ST. NICHOLAS, FROM HEAD OF THE SIDE. tunity of poor Jacky being alone, to give him a good drubbing. Then, on our way home, Bill and Harry always thrashed them in return,-and that was my revenge; but then it was a revenge that did not cure my sore bones." Lord Eldon once said to Mr. Surtees, "When your father and I were boys (and that is now a long time ago), I remember our stealing down the Side, and along the Sand-hill, and creeping into every shop, where we blew out the candles. We crept in along the counter, then pop't our heads up, out went the candles, and away went we. We escaped detection." The following is quite delectable in its way :-" Between school-hours" (Eldon is still the narrator) "we used to amuse ourselves at playing at what we called 'cock-nibs,'-that was, riding on grave-stones in St. Paul's churchyard, which, you know, was close to the school. Well, one day, one of the lads came shouting, 'Here comes Moises!' (the schoolmaster)-that was what we always called him, Moises-so away we all ran as hard as we could, and I lost my hat. Now, if you remember, there were four or five steps going down to the school, a sort of passage. Unfortunately a servant was coming along with a pudding for the bakehouse; and in my hurry, when Moises was coming, I jumped down these steps, and into the pudding. What was to be done? I borrowed another boy's great coat, and buttoned it on, over my own coat, waistcoat, pudding and all; and so we went into school. Now when I came out, I was in an unforeseen dilemma; for this great coat had stuck to my own: another boy's coat sticking to me, and my own hat lost!-here was a situation! With great difficulty the coat was pulled off; but my father was very angry at my losing my hat, and he made me go without one till the usual time of taking my best into every-day wear." Mrs. Forster states that the unlucky wight went no less than three months without his hat. THE VARIED MANUFACTURES OF NEWCASTLE We will now take our departure from the multiformed streets, time-worn antiquities, and modern splendours of Newcastle, to glance at the vast industrial features of the surrounding district. No one can enter Newcastle from Gateshead, or Gateshead from Newcastle; or trip along the Brandling Railway to South Shields, or the Tynemouth Railway to North Shields; or take a threepenny voyage down the Tyne in the steamers which are running to-and-fro all day long;-without seeing that the whole neighbourhood is a focus of manufacturing industry. It is scarcely too much to say, that the whole distance from Newcastle to the sea, on both sides of the river, forms one huge manufacturing town; so thickly are the factories and works strewed along the double line. And yet we cannot detect any unity of object in these works. It is not as at Manchester, where cotton reigns supreme; or in the West-Riding towns, where wool is the staple of industry; or at Sheffield, where steel is the be-all and do-all; or at Birmingham, where everything ima- | fail to observe the vast manufacturing and commercial ginable is made from every imaginable metal; or at the energy developed in this direction. Staffordshire Potteries, where every one looks and works and thinks and lives upon clay; or at Leicester, where stockings are regarded as the primum mobile of society it is not thus on the Tyne; for though the colliers (who will claim a little of our attention in a later page) are beyond all others the characteristic features of the spot, yet their works are mainly subterranean: they seem to belong to a nether world, whose fruits appear at the surface only to be shipped and railed away to other regions. But we may probably find that this rich supply of coal has been the main agent in inducing the settlement of manufactures on the Tyne; for most of the large establishments are of a character which render a great consumption of coal indispensable. First and foremost, we may mention the Engineering establishments. If it were for nothing but the association with the name of Stephenson, Newcastle will always have reason to be proud of these centres of high-skilled industry. Some of the finest and largest steam-engines and machines in England are made in and near Newcastle; while of locomotives it is the very birthplace. Where could be found a place so fitting for this wonderful manufacture, as the home of the two extraordinary men who-beyond all others have been mainly instrumental in developing the railway system? There are now as perfect and as numerous locomotives made in other factories, in various parts of the country; but we cannot, if we would, break the peculiar link which connects the names of George and Robert Stephensonnot only with railways, but with locomotives; not only with the use of locomotives, but with their manufacture; not only with their manufacture, but with their progressive development and improvement. The late George Stephenson-the "Hengist of railways". '—on the occasion of the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington line in 1844, gave a short epitome of his career-a career which reminds us forcibly of the Franklins, Arkwrights, and Brindleys. He had been a colliery boy in early life, or rather, he worked at the steam-engine used in drawing coals from a pit near Newcastle. As time rolled on, he contrived to make improvements in some of the engines; and he made his first locomotive (for coal traffic) at the colliery where he had been employed as a boy. He worked as a colliery engineer all day, and repaired clocks and watches at night; and he thus saved money enough to procure a good education for that son whose name has since become famous wherever railways are known or thought of. Where the father himself announces such facts, they do indeed become public property, honourable to all alike. Another great and important feature of Tyne industry is the glass manufacture. This material is made in and around Newcastle to an enormous extent-not merely in one of its forms, but in all: plate-glass, sheet-glass, window-glass, flint-glass, bottle-glass. The cheapness of coal, the facilities for obtaining a supply of alkali and sand, and the vicinity of shipping ready to carry the manufactured produce to every quarter of the world, have doubtless all contributed to the settlement of the glass manufacture in this district. And a beautiful manufacture it is to look upon, if the spectator is not squeamish about a great heat and a little dirt. Take the Plate-glass for an example. We see the ingredients melting in the clay vessels in the fiercely-heated furnace; the transference of this melted material to the cuvette, or iron bucket; the wheeling of the cuvette out of the fiery furnace on a miniature railway; the tilting of the cuvette, so that it shall pour out its golden stream of molten glass on the level surface of the cast-iron When we visit (if we are permitted to visit) Stephenson's works-not far from the spot where the mighty viaduct leaps over the Close to reach the Castle-hillwe find them very much like other works of a similar kind. There are the open yards, surrounded by build-casting-table; and the cooling of this stratum into a ings; the forging and casting shops, where the rougher portions of metal are prepared; the filing and planing shops, where the surfaces are brought to a state of smoothness and polish; and the fitting shops, where all these elements are brought together in their proper relations. Iron, steel, copper, brass, and a little woodthese are the materials: forging, casting, rolling, drawing, boring, turning, planing, drilling, cutting, filing, polishing, riveting these are the processes. Locomotives, new and old, meet the view on every side; some with the framework only just set up, some roughly put together, some in all their magnitude and beauty painted in some parts, and polished in the rest; some undergoing hospital treatment. A locomotive of 1849 is a study, both manufacturing and commercial. When we think that such a machine, of the last perfected construction, contains upwards of five thousand separate pieces of metal, that it generally costs about two thousand guineas, and that there are five hundred such possessed by one single railway company-we cannot sheet of solid glass half an inch in thickness. We see this plate annealed in a carefully but not highly heated oven; and then we follow it through the processes whereby, by the aid of wet sand, ground flint, and emery powder, it is ground and polished to the form of that most beautiful of all manufactured substances—a speckless, spotless, colourless, perfectly transparent sheet of plate glass. Or take the Sheet-glass department. Here we see the workman, when the ingredients are commingled and melted, dip a tube into the melted glass; roll the glowing ductile mass on a smooth surface; blow through the tube, to make the mass hollow within; swing the tube and the glass to and fro like a pendulum, until the hollowed mass assumes the shape of a cylinder; and open the cylinder into a large flat sheet of glass, by a most extraordinary train of manipulations. Or let common Crown or Window-glass be the object of our attention. Here we see the ingredients-chiefly sand, alkali, and lime-melted in the furnace; and the striking mode in which the workman, after gathering eight or L |
