Alderman Fenwick's House, #98 Pilgrim Street

Image: © Roger Templeman Taken: 20 Jun 2012

This house at 98 Pilgrim Street is one of the most important mercantile town houses in any city in the North of England. With medieval origins, it occupies two burgage plots on the main route to the North and seems to have been substantially built in the mid-seventeenth century. The oak stair, rising into the lantern tower, and the ceiling of the Great Room are of this period. In Corbridge's 1723 map of Newcastle, the building is attributed to 'Alderman Fenwick'. Although not born out by research, the name has stuck. In the late eighteenth century it became the Queen's Head. From 1880 until 1962 it was the Newcastle Liberal Club, but by the late 1970s the building was derelict. Consent for demolition was applied for and refused. In 1980, the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust appointed Simpson & Brown to carry out structural and internal repairs to the buildings for their use as offices. Following completion of the first phase in 1983, funding failed and the buildings stood empty for thirteen years. With new support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the work was resumed and completed in 1997-8. The house remains in the ownership of the Trust, whose principal tenant is the Bank of England. There is an OS benchmark Image on the right hand side column of the lantern tower, left of the entrance.

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