Beside the Black Gate of Newcastle’s Castle is the site of a particularly nasty ruin with a chequered history. Today we’re looking at the Heron Pit – one of the first prisons in Newcastle. Newcastle’s first prison In stark contrast to modern-day prisons, the Heron Pit didn’t have any doors. It would originally have had...Read More

Newcastle Castle’s Black Gate is the entrance to the Castle. Unlike the Black Gate from the Lord of the Rings, the gate is not named after all the dark and evil deeds that took place there. In fact it has a much more straightforward reason behind its name. In this blog, we take a closer...Read More

In this blog we explore some of the settlement outside of the Castle keep. The Castle Garth – the area around the Castle Keep. There were two main gates to Newcastle’s Castle, the West Gate, the site of which now stands on the Westgate Road in Newcastle, and the Black Gate – much more famous...Read More

The first thing to say about The Great Hall is that the name is a Victorian name. It wouldn’t have been called the Great Hall during the Middle Ages. That would have been another building outside of the Castle Keep. The Great hall, behind Newcastle’s Castle keep Where today’s Vermont Hotel is, the original Great...Read More