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History

The bridges

Seven bridges cross the Tyne between Gateshead and Newcastle in little more than a mile, and four of them meet the district at the river. The lowest crossing, where the Swing Bridge is now, has carried a bridge on and off for nearly 1,900 years.

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The Tyne Bridge seen downstream from the Swing Bridge on a sunny morning: a line of scaffolding poles along the deck under the green arch, a dark platform slung beneath the road, scaffolding on the Newcastle quayside below the left-hand tower, The Glasshouse and the Millennium Bridge beyond, and the Swing Bridge's timber pier in the foreground
Looking downstream from the Swing Bridge, the oldest crossing place on the river, to the Tyne Bridge and the Millennium Bridge. 11 October 2026.

Seven bridges cross between the two towns in little more than a mile: from downstream, the Millennium Bridge, the Tyne Bridge, the Swing Bridge, the High Level Bridge, the Queen Elizabeth II Metro Bridge, the King Edward VII Bridge and the Redheugh Bridge. The district’s riverside runs from the King Edward VII Bridge to the Swing Bridge. For closures and works on the bridges now, see Bridge works; for their listing grades, Listed buildings.

The Roman bridge

Newcastle’s Roman name, Pons Aelius, means the bridge of Hadrian (Aelius was his family name). The bridge was probably built about AD 122, when the Sixth Legion arrived in Britain to build Hadrian’s Wall. Its exact line is not known: the Historic Environment Record calls it “uncertain, but widely believed to be on or in the vicinity of” the Swing Bridge. Nothing of it can be seen. Bridges excavated further along the Wall, at Chesters and Willowford, had stone arches, so WallQuest’s board suggests this one did too, rather than the timber deck once assumed.

When the old bridge’s piers were taken out for the Swing Bridge in 1872, the antiquary John Collingwood Bruce recorded timber piles he took to be Roman, medieval and Georgian; souvenirs and furniture were made from the wood. Some at least were medieval. The board says a radiocarbon date from one pile, obtained by the WallQuest community archaeology project (about 2013–16), “now proves that the Roman bridge was on the same site as the medieval and the swing bridges”. We haven’t found the published date or report, and a museum paper from the same project suggests the “Roman” piles may all have been medieval, so we treat the site as likely rather than proven. If you know where the result was published, tell us.

The river has given up three Roman stones from the north channel at the Swing Bridge, all now in the Great North Museum: Hancock:

Altars to the gods of the sea fit a legion that had just made the crossing to Britain; the board points to the anchor carved on the altar to Oceanus.

Roman Gateshead

At the Gateshead end of the bridge a small settlement grew up along the road down to the river. Roman layers were first found in 1994 on the west side of Bottle Bank, and trial digs followed up to 1998; the main excavation, by Oxford Archaeology North in 2000, came before the Hilton was built on the site. It found the remains of stone buildings, stone-lined cisterns, ditches and a stretch of paved road, with pottery mostly of the late 2nd and 3rd centuries. The road, a 3rd-century side track, roughly follows the line of the medieval Mirk Lane. The board describes the settlement as roadside shops and temples living off the traffic to the bridge; the excavation record is more cautious about what the buildings were.

The medieval bridge

The fire of 1248 that destroyed much of Newcastle took the timber bridge with it, and a stone bridge followed, paid for with indulgences and gifts; the Historic Environment Record thinks a stone bridge may already have been started in the late 12th century. The Bishop of Durham, who held Gateshead, was responsible for a third of it, and the Blue Stone set into the roadway marked where his territory ended and Newcastle’s began. It had twelve arches, houses and shops along it, a tower with a portcullis and drawbridge at the Gateshead end and another in the middle, and from 1636 the Magazine Gate at the Newcastle end, where the chapel of St Thomas the Martyr stood.

The river rose through the night of 16 November 1771, and at about 3 o’clock on the morning of the 17th the middle arch and two arches near the Gateshead side gave way. Houses on the bridge went into the river; six people died in Newcastle that night, among them a Mr Fiddas and his maidservant, swept off the bridge. One land arch of the medieval bridge still survives under the Swing Bridge, scheduled and listed Grade I.

The Georgian bridge

A temporary timber bridge opened on 27 October 1772. The new stone bridge, of nine arches, was again built in two parts: Robert Mylne designed the Bishop’s share, whose first stone was laid on 14 October 1774, and John Wooler the Corporation’s, begun the next April. It was in use by 1781, when the temporary bridge came down, and was widened between 1801 and 1818. Its low arches stopped ships going upriver, and from 1868 it was taken down for the Swing Bridge; its last piers came out in 1872.

The Swing Bridge

The Tyne Improvement Commission, set up under an Act of 1861 to open the upper river to sea-going ships, commissioned the Swing Bridge from W. G. Armstrong & Co., whose Elswick works upriver designed it, built the ironwork and the hydraulic machinery that turns it, and paid for the superstructure. Work on the crossing began on 23 September 1868 with clearing the old bridge; the anniversary board at the Gateshead end dates the start of Armstrong’s bridge itself to 1873. It opened to road traffic, without ceremony, on 15 June 1876. The first swing came on 17 July 1876, to let through the Italian ship Europa, on her way to collect a 100-tonne gun Armstrong’s had made for the Italian government; the eyewitness James Clephan wrote that the roadway parted “silent as the stars”. Armstrong’s could now build warships above the bridge and send them to sea through it.

It is 170.68 metres long in six spans. The two middle spans, 85.64 metres and about 1,300 tonnes, turn together on 42 rollers around the centre pier, where a hydraulic press lifts some 900 tonnes of the weight while it swings; the bridge is driven from the cupola on top, turns 90 degrees to let a ship through, and takes about six minutes to go the full 180. Ships heading upriver used the northern channel and ships heading down the southern. The pumps were electrified in 1959, but Armstrong’s own engines still turn it. Its busiest year was 1924, with around 6,000 swings; between the first opening and the end of 1981 it swung 286,281 times and let through about 448,000 vessels. The largest ever was the MV Fernmount, 5,000 tonnes net, in 1952.

It is listed Grade II*. The anniversary board puts its last swing in 2019, when commercial shipping upriver came to an end. Reports in 2021 said an attempt to swing it that August jammed, and in early 2026 that the Port of Tyne and the two councils were looking at how to repair it. If it moves again, tell us.

The riverside at its Gateshead foot is the start of the district: the River Police Station plaque, Lock and Quay the WallQuest board and the 150th anniversary board are all within a few steps.

The others, in order

Sources