The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town, is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the city from the south.  So near is it to the railway, that in the ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin.  It was rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved by them—­more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.

The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain A.D. 120.  He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort and bridge receiving the name of Pons Aelii, after the Emperor (Publius AElius Hadrianus).  This became the second station on the Great Wall erected by Hadrian’s orders along the line of forts which Agricola had raised forty years before.  This station shared the fate of others on the abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.  Pons Aelii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester.  All the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in 1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide to “Muneche-cester,” sought for some religious house in that settlement, could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow.  The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.

It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father’s orders, raised a stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year 1080.  His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.