Newcastle is famous for a lot of things.
People travel from all over the country to experience our pubs, bars and clubs and Geordies are known to be football mad.
But the city has so much history stretching from before Roman times to 2024.
The North East was an integral hub during the Industrial Revolution thanks to its supply of coal. And let’s not forget, the railway was born here thanks to the work of George and Robert Stephenson in the 1820s and 1830s developing the locomotive in their Newcastle works.
All of this is well-known and documented. But the city still has so much history which is largely unknown to even Geordies themselves.
So, here are seven incredible facts about the city. Hopefully, most of which you didn’t know.
We have facts about executions and the earliest record of football in the region. As well as some World War II and innovation titbits.
Have a read and let us know your thoughts.
5. Sandhill once looked very different
Sandhill on the Quayside got its name because, when the tide was out, it was a hill of naked sand. Now a hub of bars, it was once the place of public executions and public gatherings. | NL Photo: Newcastle Libraries
6. Newcastle used to be England's 'second town'
By the seventeenth century, Newcastle was considered the second town of the kingdom. In 1609 Newcastle was described as the ‘glory of all the towns in this country’ and in 1633 ‘beyond all compare the fairest and richest town in England, inferior for wealth and building to no city save London’. Its mineral wealth was renowned. For two centuries the region fuelled the industrial revolution and made Britain the workshop of the world. | NL Photo: Newcastle Libraries
7. It's unclear where the word 'Geordie' comes from
There's no clear answer as to where the name 'Geordie' comes from. The earliest theory is the name was born during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when the Jacobites bypassed Newcastle due to the city favouring the Hanovarian King George and possessing a well-guarded garrison. The Jacobites are said to have labelled Newcastle and the surrounding areas as “for George,” and Geordie is a derivation of George. Or, as written in the dictionary, Geordie was first used to describe a local pitman or miner in 1876. Also relating to the mines, the third option is thanks to George Stephenson. In 1815, Stephenson invented the miners’ lamp, or Geordie safety lamp, which local miners used in preference to Davy lamps used elsewhere. Eventually, this led to the miners being known as Geordies. But, before the Geordie lamp was invented, in 1826 George Stephenson gave evidence to a Parliamentary Commission on Railways at which his blunt speech and dialect allegedly drew sneers. From then, it’s said that Londoners began to call the colliers which carried coal from the Tyne to the Thames, and the men who worked on them, Geordies. | NL Photo: Newcastle Libraries