This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the stream, seems always to have been the most convenient point for crossing the river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has spanned the Tyne at this point:  Hadrian’s bridge, Pons Aelii; a mediaeval bridge destroyed by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge, swept away in the flood of 1771; the successor of this, which was found too low to allow of the passage of such large vessels as were able to sail up the Tyne after the deepening of the river bed; and the present Swing Bridge, which is worked by hydraulic machinery, the invention of Lord Armstrong.  We do not know how long Hadrian’s bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror, when returning from his expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to camp for a time at “Monec-cestre,” as the Tyne was in flood, and there was no bridge.

Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of which, with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be the oldest house in Newcastle.  Turning up an opening on the west side of this street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars’ Monastery may be seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting places of various Trade Guilds, and the rest form low tenement houses, in the walls of which are many Gothic archways and ancient window-openings built up.  Over the door of the Smith’s Hall is a carving of three hammers, and the inscription:—­

  “By hammer and hand
  All artes do stand.”

This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland.  Nun Street, leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun’s Moor was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment.  In High Friar Street, which was not then the dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard Grainger was born.

Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high estate is the Close, which lies along the river front, westward from the Sandhill.  Here, at one time, lived many of the principal inhabitants of Newcastle—­Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir Ralph Millbank, and others equally important; and here, too, was the former Mansion House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and where they could receive distinguished visitors to the town.  Amongst those who have been entertained there were the Duke of Wellington and the first King of the Belgians.  But in 1836 the Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with the furniture, books, pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.

Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the “Newcastle Anthem”—­The Keel Row.  Its present appearance is very different from the green slope and sandy shore of former days; the keelmen, too, have vanished, and their place in the commercial economy of the Tyne is taken by waggon-ways and coal-shoots.  The old narrow alleys of the town, called “chares,” are fast disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare, leading from Bigg Market to Westgate Road.  Many and various are the explanations that have been offered to account for its curious name, but the true one does not seem yet to have appeared.