From Newcastle to the sea, twelve miles by water, the Tyne is a vast tidal dock. It stands second among the rivers of the kingdom for the extent of its commerce. The Thames takes precedence in the number of vessels which enter and leave, and the Mersey stands before it in respect of the total tonnage of the ships by which it is frequented; but the Tyne ranks second to the Thames in the number of vessels which enter the port, and second to the Mersey in the bulk of its trade. But more remarkable even than the commerce of the river are its great industries. From Gateshead to the sea on the one hand, and from Newcastle to the sea on the other, there is a constant succession of shipyards, chemical factories, engineering establishments, glass-works, docks, and coal-shoots. Newcastle, it has been remarked, owes its rise to war, its maintenance to piety, and its increase to trade. A very neat and true saying. But trade has done more for the Tyne than for Newcastle. It has, since the beginning of the century, increased the population of the chief Northumbrian town from 30,000 to 160,000; but it has increased the population of Tyneside to half a million or more.
Milton did the river a huge injustice when he called this the “coaly Tyne.” His intention was innocent enough, no doubt, since he meant only to acknowledge its celebrity in connection with coal. But it is the fate of these indecisively descriptive phrases to be misunderstood. The Tyne is a brighter and clearer stream than the Mersey, is immeasurably purer than the Thames, is only occasionally muddied like the Humber, and is at no time discoloured by coal. When there are floods in the upper reaches, so much brown soil is carried down by the impetuous water that the current of the river can be traced far out to sea; but at ordinary seasons the local colour of the Tyne approaches that of the sea itself, and is, in fact, a deep, clear olive-green. What is insufficiently understood, however, is that the local colour of a stream is that which is most seldom disclosed. Water takes its hue from the sky above it, and from the light which plays about its face. Hence Spenser’s beautiful and much assailed phrase, “the silver-streaming Thames.” Hence, also, the Tyneside poet’s eulogy of his native stream:—
“Of all the rivers, north or south,
There’s none like coaly Tyne.”
The Romans threw three bridges across the river. There was one which crossed with the wall at Chollerford; and there was one which crossed with the Watling Street at Corbridge; and there was a third, earlier and far more important than the other two, which linked together what were afterwards to be named the counties of Durham and Northumberland. The bridge at Newcastle, built by Hadrian on his first visit to these northern parts of Roman Britain, was deemed of so much importance that at Rome a medal was struck to commemorate its erection. Also it gave its name to the Roman station which stood on the heights above. Newcastle first became known to history as Pons Ælii, in honour alike of Hadrian’s bridge and of Hadrian’s family. And ever since that day the town has been famous for its bridges. There was one which resembled London Bridge in having shops almost from end to end. It endured, says an eloquent local historian, “from the times of the Plantagenets, and through the Wars of the Roses, past Bosworth and Flodden Fields and the Armada, down to the encounter of the King and Parliament, to the Commonwealth, the Restoration, and the Revolution; and beyond the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 it kept its accustomed place across the stream, surviving the daily pressure of the tide, the rage of inundations, the bumping of barges and keels, the shocks of civil war, the negligent inattentions of peace.” But at length large portions of it were swept away by the great flood of 1771, one of its houses being carried whole as far as Jarrow Slake, some miles farther down the Tyne.
On the bridge of Hadrian two lofty hills looked down. The Tyne has here at some remote period scourged its way through a deep ravine, and Newcastle, and its opposite neighbour, Gateshead, are built partly around the feet of commanding eminences, and still more extensively on the summits of these hills. Old Newcastle was a town of stairs. Communication between its upper and its lower portions was, with the exception of one narrow and steep street leading from the bridge, maintained by means of long flights of stone steps, which still exist, and are up to this day extensively used. All the succeeding bridges were built on the site of that of Hadrian. “The Low Bridge” was the name given to the last of these from the time when the High Level was built. It is the Swing Bridge which now crosses the Tyne at the point selected so many centuries ago, this swing bridge being a gigantic iron structure, with a great central span that is moved by hydraulic power, and leaves two openings of such extent that the Victoria, the largest vessel in Her Majesty’s Navy, has been able to pass through without grazing either of the piers. But notable as is the Swing Bridge as a work of engineering, it is inferior even in this respect to the High Level Bridge, and very far inferior in grace and beauty. The High Level does for the higher portions of Newcastle and Gateshead what all the bridges from Hadrian’s time have done for the lower portions. It is a foot and carriage way between the neighbouring towns; but it is also more than this, for at a height of twenty-seven feet above the roadway, under which a full-rigged ship can sail, there is a railway viaduct along which passes the main line to Scotland. One of the most wonderful of the world’s bridges, the High Level is also one of the most handsome and well proportioned, so that it has probably been painted more frequently than any bridges but those of Cumberland and Wales. It is an appropriate thing that in the Swing Bridge and the High Level Bridge, which are likely enough to last for centuries to come, Newcastle should have memorials of its two greatest engineers, the High Level having been built by Robert Stephenson, and the Swing Bridge by Lord Armstrong.
Gateshead has been disparagingly described as “a dirty lane leading to Newcastle;” but this was in the days that are no more. It is now a great congeries of lanes, streets, roads, and alleys, dirty and otherwise. But for a large town thus intervening, we might see how rapidly the land slopes upward from the riverside to the two-miles-distant crown of Sheriff Hill, which is on the road southward to Durham, to York, and through the fair English shires to London. It was on the summit of Sheriff’s Hill that the Sheriffs of Newcastle—a place which boasted of such officers because it was a county as well as a town—received the King’s Judges when coming on Circuit. Thus far they advanced to meet them into the county of Durham. There was a splendid procession through Gateshead, over the Low Bridge, up the steep “Side,” into Newcastle, and to the Assize Courts. Gorgeous trumpeters made proclamation; the gilded and hammerclothed carriages of the Mayor and Sheriffs were guarded by halberdiers; a tall official walked in front, with a great fur cap of maintenance and a most amazing sword. When the judges, sated with hospitality, and with the gaol-delivery completed, set off on horseback towards Carlisle, they were presented with money to buy each of them a dagger, to guard themselves against robbers and evil men.
COAL TRIMMERS. / A COAL STAITHE.