STREETS, &c.

From the local situation of Newcasile, the old streets and alleys seem to have been very irregular; those of a more modern date are a little better planned, paved, and executed.

QUAY, OR KEY-SIDE

The wall that was here being taken down, the quay, in consequence, has been so enlarged and improved as to become one of the largest, longest, and most commodious wharfs in the kingdom. It meafures, says Bourne, 103 rods; yet so prodigious has the shipping of the port of Newcastle encreased of late years, from almost all nations, particularly the northern, that, extensive as it is, it is found often infufficient, and the vessels can only come to the Quayfide to unload in their turns. A scheme has lately been handed about, to make it still more commodious, by ordering all the wherries to unload above the bridge, making a quay from the Skinnerbourn foundery to the Lead Stairs, to include two arches of the bridge, and to have the dwelling-houses there converted into warehouses. The above plan would be more especially necessary, should a canal from the east to the west sea ever be cut. The names of the chares leading from this place to the Butcher Bank, Pandon, &c. are familiar enough to the inhabitants; and it would afford small gratification to others to be told that one is called Broad Chare, another Grindon Chare, another Peppercorn Chare, &c. They are twenty-one in number; but, although

their appearance has little to recommend them, yet there are abundance of storehouses and lofts for corn, and indeed for valuable commodities of every kind. The west end joins the bridge, and about the middle of the quay is the custom-house, a stately building, which shall be described in its proper place.

SAND-HILL.

This part of the town, the scene of so much bufiness, derives its name, we are told, from its being a bill of naked fand, where the inhabitants used to afsemble for recreation. We are also informed, that at high water the tide used to carry small vessels up part of the Side to the foot of the Dean, (now Deanstreet) over which the Roman wall paffed, by the Low Bridge. By this it would appear that the Tyne was broader and larger in former times than it is now. Nor is this at all improbable. We all know that the whole island was almost covered with wood, when the Romans first invaded Britain. Philosophers tell us, that trees and forests are powerful alembics, and that their foliage strongly attracts the moisture in the clouds, which, distilling on the ground, forms rills, rivulets, and flowing incessantly into rivers, greatly encreases their quantity of water. We are told, that fince the cutting down of the huge forests of America, and clearing the grounds, on the banks of their large rivers, the waters are constantly decreafing, in proportion as these natural alembics are removed. This may have been the cafe with the river Tyne. However, the Sand-hill has fuffered a happy transformation, as from a hill of barren fea sand, it has become the great market-place of Newcastle, castle, furrounded with rich and spacious shops, abounding with every kind of valuable and useful merchandize.

On the fouth side of the Sand-hill stood the hofpital called Maison de Dieu, or House of God. Here were maintained a warden, being a priest, nine poor men, brethren, and four poor women, sisters. This ancient edifice was founded about the beginning of the reign of Henry the Fourth. The celebrated Roger de Thornton, the munificent benefactor of Newcaftle, and its representative in Parliament, was the founder of this charitable institution. The house was dedicated to St. Catharine.

A royal licence was obtained from king Henry IV. dated February 12th, 1403, to enable Roger de Thornton, burgess of Newcastle upon Tyne, to alien in mortmain, to the mayor, sheriff, aldermen, and commonalty of that town, a piece of ground, one hundred feet in length, and twenty-four in breadth, within faid town, wherein certain poor persons were to be provided with meat and clothing, in a "House of God," to be built by the faid Thornton; and where they should pray daily for the health of the faid mayor, sheriff, &c.; as also for that of the founder, while he lived; and, after their respective deaths, for their fouls, and the fouls of the father and mother of the founder, and those of all the benefactors of that intended hofpital.

By the name of the warden, brethren, and sisters of the hofpital of St. Catharine, called Thornton's Hospital, they might plead, and be impleaded, in all courts, and have a common feal. In subsequent reigns, there were additional emoluments bestowed upon the Maison de Dieu of Thornton, till fir Rich

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ard Lumley, of Lumley Castle, in the county of Durham, knight, a defcendant of Thornton, by the female line, conveyed, June the fit, 1624, to the mayor and burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne, and their fucceffors, forever, all that building of stone, covered with lead, standing near to the water of Tyne, and to the east part of the chamber of the faid town of Newcastle, being anciently part of and belonging to the hofpital of St. Catharine the virgin, commonly called Thornton's hofpital. This grant is evidently made after the diffolution of the hofpital itself.

It seems by Speed's plan of Newcastle, that the Maison de Dieu was the first public place, or building, marked on the Sand-hill, through which Lorkburn is represented as paffing, on the east side. It has fince that tinue been arched over.

In this place stand the Exchange and Town-court, (fee public buildings) built between the years 1655 and 1658. Bourne says, that an old town-house was firit built, where the present one stands, by the fame powerful and benevolent Roger Thornton.

In the middle of the Sand-hill, fronting the Exchange, there was erected a statue of king james II. taft in copper, of the size of the famous equeftrian statue of Charles I. at Charing-cross, London. In the convulsed state of the nation, the inhabitants, incensed at the tyranny of James, pulled down his flatue, and threw it into the river, in the year 1688, the celebrated æra of the restoration of British liberty. The flatue, however, was faid to be a mafterly piece of art, caft by Mr. William Larson, and approved of by Sir Chriftopher Wren. It cost the town eight hundred pounds. Upon the accession of William

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William prince of Orange to the throne of Britain, when the ferment of men's minds had fubfided, the magistrates ordered the statue to be taken out of the river; but not thinking it prudent to replace it in its former situation, they probably put it to a better use, by converting it into a set of bells. Before the alterations made upon the Exchange, a few years ago, and while the steeple was standing, a statue of Charles II. in Roman habit was placed in a niche upon a pedestal, in the front of the Town-house. On pulling down the steeple, the statue was removed, and placed in the west end of the Exchange, in the area where gentlemen meet for business and conversation.

Paffing the entrance to the quay, where was the Water-gate, there is now a lofty pile of buildings, eight stories high, for the purpose of depositing goods of different kinds, which, by means of a powerful crane, are easily either taken on board the ships at the quay, or conveyed to the wharf. The present warehouses were erected in consequence of the former buildings being, a few years ago, nearly destroyed by fire.

Adjoining to the Exchange, and close to the bridge, is the chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr.(See churches, &c.

THE OLD BRIDGE.

It is observed by Mr. Bourne, that the building now under confideration was of great antiquity, undoubtedly as old as the times of the Romans. It was an invariable rule in the policy of that people to cement all the provinces of their vast empire by mo

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