Newcastle upon Tyne
— — a city that knows the weight of its own bridges.
Not only on a wall.
“Newcastle sits on the north bank of the Tyne, in the northeast of England, eighty miles south of the Scottish border. The Tyne Bridge — green steel arch, opened in 1928 — is the one people picture, but six others are visible from the quayside. Above the river, Grainger Town runs in honey-coloured stone laid down in the 1830s. The accent is its own language.
Newcastle upon Tyne, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Newcastle upon Tyne is the largest city in northeast England, on the north bank of the River Tyne about 14 kilometres inland from the North Sea. Its population is roughly 300,000, with about 800,000 across the wider Tyneside conurbation. The Romans built the first bridge here, Pons Aelius, around 122 CE, and the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall ran through what is now the city centre. The medieval castle keep, raised between 1168 and 1178 under Henry II, still stands above the river and gives the city its name.
Grainger Town, the Georgian quarter laid out between 1834 and 1841 by builder Richard Grainger and architect John Dobson, runs through the city centre in honey-coloured sandstone. Grey Street, its main axis, curves down toward the river and was voted Britain's finest street in a 2002 BBC Radio 4 poll. Below it, seven bridges cross the Tyne within a kilometre — most famously the green steel arch of the Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928 and built by Dorman Long, the same firm behind Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Newcastle Central Station sits ten minutes' walk from the quayside; the East Coast Main Line reaches London in under three hours and Edinburgh in about ninety minutes. The quayside market runs Sunday mornings between the Tyne Bridge and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. Across the river the Glasshouse International Centre for Music (formerly Sage Gateshead, 2004, by Norman Foster) and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art occupy a converted flour mill. Hadrian's Wall begins at Wallsend, four miles downstream.