Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Quayside?

The Quayside carries the older markers of Newcastle upon Tyne. Its defining survivor is Bessie Surtees House, a pair of merchant houses on Sandhill whose Jacobean fronts recall the trade that once crowded this waterfront, while Newcastle upon Tyne Castle stands on the rise just above the quay. Turbinia rests nearby.

That pioneering steam vessel is kept at the Discovery Museum, one of the Newcastle upon Tyne collections that draw visitors up from the water and out into the wider streets of the city.

What is the history of Quayside?

Trade made the Quayside. It grew as the working waterfront of Newcastle upon Tyne, the strip where ships loaded and merchants built their halls, and Bessie Surtees House survives from that mercantile age as a rare timber-framed front on Sandhill. Above it all sat the fortress.

Newcastle upon Tyne Castle gave the town its name and guarded the crossing of the river long before the warehouses rose. When the docks fell quiet the old sheds were left standing, and later hands turned them into the galleries and bars that line the water now.

Where is Quayside?

Quayside runs as a narrow riverside shelf below the old core of Newcastle upon Tyne, its cobbled lanes climbing from the water past Sandhill to Newcastle upon Tyne Castle, while the far bank carries the eye across to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.