The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm, doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.

Gray, who published his Chorographia, or Survey of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St. Nicholas’ as having “a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles, a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by Robert de Rhodes....  It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs.”

The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the Scots in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it received, a little more than a century later, from those who ought to have been its friends.  In the years 1784-7 there were many alterations made in the building, during which almost all the old memorials and monuments perished, or were removed; those which were not claimed by the living representatives of the persons commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or destroyed; and the brasses were disposed of as old metal.  The modern alterations and restorations have been more happy in their effect, and one of the notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak screen in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.

There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship.  The Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral’s body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander, Nelson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he worshipped as a boy.  There are two monuments by Flaxman—­one of the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813.  Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.

Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, “Christ washing the feet of the Disciples”; this was presented to the church by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818.  There are many more things of interest in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible, incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the care of the authorities.

The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew’s, supposed to have been built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen.  It suffered greatly in the struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls.  In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell us that no baptism nor “sarmon” took place within its walls for a year (1645).  But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who, we learn from the same authority, “would pay nothing to the Church.”