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regard with an anxious eye. From this station, or from any contiguous spot, the view over the two towns is very striking: the river, the shipping, the coal-keels, the factories, the glass-works, the pottery-works, the lofty chimneys, the steeples, the new railway bridge that grandest of features in the town-all combine to form a scene of great activity and interest. Our steel plate gives one of the many general views which may be obtained of the town.

Let us see what this famous railway-bridge is, or rather is to be. To understand its position and object, we must know what are the outlets which railways have afforded to Newcastle.

In the first place, then, there is the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, which, taking the great northern wall as its pretty close companion, stretches across the island nearly from one sea to the other; and has been instrumental in supplying the west with coals from the east. Then there is the North Shields line, which, starting from Pilgrim Street, near the eastern margin of Newcastle, spans over several hollows by lofty viaducts, and passes through North Shields to Tynemouth, Next, we have the Newcastle and Berwick Railway, which makes use of a portion of the lastmentioned line, and then darts off northward towards Scotland. Lastly, we have the net-work of Durham railways, which, taking their departure from Gateshead, open up a communication with South Shields, Sunderland, Durham, York, and the south generally,

Then came the great work-a work fit for the age and the place. All these railways stopped short at the several margins of the town; but commerce could not permit such a state of things to remain: she must and will have a central station; and this station requires enormous viaducts, stretching over the deep-lying portion of the town. W, consequently, find the following gigantic plan now being carried out :-A spot of ground was selected near Neville Street, rather to the west of the centre of Newcastle, as the site of a grand central station; and thither the various lines of railway were to be brought. The Carlisle line was to shoot past its former terminus, and arrive at Neville Street by a bold curve passing almost close to the Infirmary. The Shields line, taking with it the Berwick line, was to span over Pilgrim Street, then, still more loftily, over the junction of the 'Side' with Dean Street, and join its opposite Carlisle neighbour at Neville Street. But

the great enterprize remains to be noticed-the crossing of the Tyne. The existing Newcastle bridge accommodates the lower parts of Newcastle and of Gateshead; but the railways occupy the heights of the two towns; and any railway bridge over the Tyne must necessarily soar at a vast height above the river. The townsmen have for many years had under consideration the construction of a high level' bridge, for the service of the higher parts of the two towns; and after | much negotiation, a plan was agreed upon between the railway companies and the corporation, by virtue of which the former undertook the construction of a double bridge-one of the most astonishing structures,

perhaps, in England; consisting of a common foot and carriage bridge at a great height above the river, and a railway over that! This railway was to pass almost close by the castle, and to join the others at the grand central station.

Such was the comprehensive plan proposed; and the present state of things at Newcastle shows how rapidly the plan is approaching its completion. The great station is in progress. The viaduct crosses the lowlying streets from Pilgrim Street to the vicinity of the castle; so that in passing up the 'Side' or up Dean Street, we see the locomotive panting away far above us. The railway-bridge over the river, when finished, (the present traffic arrangements being only temporary) will exhibit two piers at the margin of the river, and four others in the stream itself, besides minor piers to support the land arches. These piers are of masonry, and of immense strength. The distance from pier to pier is about a hundred and twenty-four feet, and this determines the span of the arches. At a height of about ninety feet above high-water level runs a level bridge for carriages, horses, and foot-passengers; and at a further height of about twenty-five feet above this roadway runs the railway itself. The astonishing magnitude of this grand work will be better conceived by bearing in mind, that the entire height of masonry and iron-work, from the bed of the river to the parapet of the railway, exceeds a hundred and thirty feet! The whole length of the structure, from the high ground of Gateshead to the high ground of Newcastle, is nearly fourteen hundred feet. It has been estimated that the iron work in the structure will weigh nearly five thousand tons! The mason-work, in and over the river itself, will cost above a hundred thousand pounds, the mason and brick-work of the land arches about an equal sum, and the iron-work a still larger sum. The bridge and viaduct are seen in the distance in Cut No. 1, while the arch at the bottom of Dean Street is shown in Cut No. 2.

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Railway affairs may fluctuate; directors and shareholders may wrangle; ' calls' may be amazingly rapid, and dividends amazingly small; golden dreams may be dissipated; estimates may be greatly exceeded;all this may occur, and Newcastle may have its share of these troubles; but the high-level' bridge will stand for ages, a monument of enterprise, skill, and beauty. We may state that, at present, the trains pass along a temporary timber bridge, which will be removed when the permanent bridge is finished; and that the three old stations are still used during the erection of the great central station. The autumn of the present year will probably witness the completion of the whole arrangements.

The present existing old bridge, at Newcastle, is the only one between the railway bridge and the sea. Indeed, such a low bridge ought not to have been built there at all; for the river above that point is thereby quite shut out from the approach of shipping; and the whole commercial arrangements of Newcastle have had to bend to the influence of this circumstance. There

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seems great probability that the Romans built a bridge across the Tyne, of seven arches; for various remains were discovered in the last century, in the bed of the river, serving to indicate such a fact. This bridge, or rather a bridge on the same site, was several times destroyed and renewed. The last destruction of this kind took place in 1771, when the bridge was overwhelmed by a flood. The present structure was finished and opened in 1781, at a cost of £30,000. It consists of nine elliptical arches. At the beginning of the present century it was widened on both sides, by buttresses in connection with the piers.

THE CENTRAL TOWN: MR. GRAINGER'S STRUCTURES.

The scene which presents itself to view on entering Newcastle differs greatly, according as we take the 'high-level' or the 'low-level' entrance. We shall find it convenient to adopt the former, and plant the reader at once pretty near the centre of the town.

Newcastle owes no small share of the beauty which marks some of its streets to one single individual,possessing a bold original mind, which could think and plan for itself, and conquer, one by one, the difficulties

man.

which would have crushed a less vigorous man. If we were to regard this as a matter simply of pounds, shillings, and pence, we should have to place it on a lower level than many a building-enterprise: it is not every one that, in enriching his native town, can also enrich himself,-the town retains the adornment for ages, whether the author of it dies a rich or a poor Let us see what has been done by Mr. Grainger, and how it has been done, at Newcastle. It is necessary to know what the town was in the early part of the present century, before we can form an estimate of the amount of boldness, courage, and perseverance necessary to work out the subsequent changes. In bygone ages the Franciscan convent and the nunnery were surrounded by twelve acres of ground, in the heart of the town; but these were, in later days, replaced by an old mansion (the temporary prison of Charles I., alluded to in a former page), with its gardens and plantations. Down to Grainger's time this garden and plantation remained,-unproductive, on account of the smoke which for so many ages has enveloped the town, and useless to the town in any other way. He watched the ill-ordered empty space with a longing eye; he thought of the excellent building-stone in the

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quarries near at hand; he built up in his mind ima- | in this matter, for the theatre was a neat and convenient ginary terraces, and squares, and sumptuous streets; and resolved to bide his time.

Mr. Grainger entered upon various works, as a builder, for other parties; and in the course of a few years built many portions of new streets, such as Carliol, Blackett, and New Bridge Streets. Then came the rather ambitious project of Eldon Square, with its handsome rows of stone-fronted houses. Every enterprise successfully brought to a completion, acted as a stepping-stone to something higher. Grainger had advanced greatly and rapidly; and he next conceived the plan of building about a hundred and thirty stonefronted houses, of a more ornamental character than any yet seen in the town, in the northern part of Newcastle, near the Town Moor: the plan was fully carried out, and the town has unquestionably gained a great ornament by it. His next enterprise was the erection of a building which, under the name of the Arcade, and opening into Pilgrim Street, presents to view a fine stone front, extending nearly a hundred feet in length, and an interior extending two hundred and fifty feet in depth. The whole building affords offices for two Banking-houses, Post-office, Stamp-office, Excise and Permit-office, and other establishments.

Up to this date, say about the year 1832, Mr. Grainger's operations within the town had given new buildings to the value of £200,000, nearly all of them stone-fronted, and far above the usual standard of street-architecture in other towns. But his great work, the development of his vast schemes, was yet to come. The twelve acres of unemployed, or ill-employed, vacant ground in the heart of the town, on which his thoughts had been centred for many a year, at length came into the possession of Mr. Grainger, at a purchaseprice of £50,000; and about the same time he appropriated another sum, of nearly equal amount, to the purchase of some old property in the immediate vicinity. What was to come out of this, nobody knew but himself: the plans were wholly developed in his own mind before his fellow-townsmen knew aught concerning them. Something notable was expected, but this something was still vague and conjectural.

The first feature was the construction of a fine central street, in continuation of Dean Street: no ram's-horn (however proverbially crooked) can be more tortuous than the entrance into Newcastle from the old bridge; and it was to lessen a portion of this crookedness, on approaching the heart of the town, that the new street was planned. A butcher-market and a theatre stood in the way of the improvement; but the improver was not to be deterred by such obstacles. The Corporation gave up the old market, and agreed on the plan for a new one, and on the price to be paid for effecting the change. Works were commenced immediately; and in October, 1835, was opened the finest market in the kingdom-the finest at that time, and (we believe) still the finest in 1849: nay, it is even said to be the finest in Europe. The Theatre was the next point: a few difficulties arose

one; but Mr. Grainger cut the matter short by offering to build a new and handsomer one, and to present a good round sum of money into the bargain: this was accepted, and the theatre built. In all these matters, and others of a similar kind, Mr. Grainger's promptness in action became conspicuous; and the townsmen began to look out for something bold and decisive whenever he took a matter in hand.

When the whole of the property for the new central street was purchased, then arose Grainger's greatest mechanical difficulties - the levelling of the ground. Such was the alternation of hill and hollow, that the formation of a fine and regular street in the planned direction struck many with amazement, and many more with doubt. In some parts the ground had to be excavated to a depth of 27 feet, to form the basement of houses; in other parts valleys had to be filled to a height of 35 feet, and houses to be built thereupon, in order to form a street of uniform level. There were instances in which more masonry was buried underground than appeared in the whole elevation of the house above. The lowering of hillocks and ridges was so much more considerable than the filling up of hollows and trenches, that nearly five million cubic feet of earth was carried away from time to time, during the progress of the various improvements, after filling up the valleys, making mortar with some of the sand, and making bricks with some of the clay.

This arduous but most necessary operation of levelling being completed, there arose, one by one, those splendid streets, which have no parallel in England. Instances may be met with, in some of our larger towns, of isolated portions of street equal to these in beauty; but it may be doubted whether, as a group, these creations of Grainger's are equalled. Edinburgh could do more than either London or Liverpool in producing a parallel. The builder was, for the most part, his own architect; and as his new streets are mainly streets of shops, he was not bound down by precedent to such a degree as to cramp his invention. Grey Street, Grainger Street, Market Street, Clayton Street, Clayton Street West, Nun Street, Nelson Street, Wood Street, and Shakspere Street, rose in succession -all situated in the very heart of the town, all occupied by houses presenting fronts of dressed and polished stone, all together presenting a length of a mile and a quarter of street, from fifty to eighty feet wide, and all erected in about five years. It is not merely a list of new streets thus presented by the improvements; new public buildings of a notable character have been reared as parts of the general design. Thus, there are the new Market, the new Central Exchange, the new Theatre, the new Dispensary, the new Music Hall, the new Lecture Room, two new chapels, the Incorporated Companies' Hall, two auction-marts, ten inns, and twelve public-houses, besides about forty private houses, and the three or four hundred shops which formed the leading idea of the design. It has been estimated that the total value of the buildings thus

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