IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Portland Road, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, NE2 1DJ

It's had a well-deserved lick of paint recently - see Image

Shows the location of Image

Looking north.

There is another photo here Image

The carved stone lettering set into the modern brick wall located behind a bus shelter on Sandyford Road, at its junction with Grantham Road, is the only visible memory of the once famous site of the local legend known as Lambert's Leap Image At the time of the famous leap, 20th September 1759, there was a narrow bridge here which crossed the deep wooded Sandyford Dene, a tributary of the Ouse Burn further east. Cuthbert Lambert, a young customs officer, and son of a famous Newcastle Physician, was riding his horse when it suddenly went out of control and jumped the parapet of the bridge, thinking it was merely a boundary. The horse fell 37 feet to its death, breaking every bone in its back. Although some accounts suggest Lambert remained in the saddle until the bottom, others describe how he was saved by grasping hold of the projecting branches of an old ash tree. His miraculous survival became an instant sensation, retold in news-sheets across the country. The lettering was carved in the coping stones of the bridge parapet. An aquatint depicting the incident by P Dawne dated 1786 is in the British Library collection http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/kinggeorge/l/003ktop00000032u057g0000.html Twelve years later another rider suffered the same ordeal and also survived, but a Newcastle surgeon, Nicholson, was killed in a similar accident in 1827. The dene was filled in not long after and Sandyford Burn now flows in a culvert below Grantham Road. There was once a nearby public house named Lambert's Leap with a suitable sign depicting the dramatic scene. It closed in 1971 and was demolished and little remains to keep the place name in use.

Lambert's Leap is described here Image

Robert Deuchar (1831-1904) was a Brewer and Property Speculator who came to Newcastle from Scotland in the 1860s. The Sandyford Stone Brewery probably dates from the mid 18th century, built of local stone from a quarry alongside Sandyford Burn close to Lambert’s Leap. It was largely rebuilt around 1840. It was later converted into a bottling store, offices and a bonded warehouse. A stone door lintel reading ‘Office 1904 Robert Deuchar Ltd’ can be seen above the entrance. After his death the business was continued by his eldest son, Farquhar and descendents, until bought by Newcastle Breweries in 1953. http://www.jesmondoldcemetery.co.uk/deuchar_25.html Deuchars IPA is a permanent beer brewed by Edinburgh's Caledonian Brewery. The porch of St Andrew's Church of Scotland can be seen on the right. The Church of Scotland has been represented in the city since Knox's time in 1550 and this building, on the corner of Sandyford Road and Grantham Road dates from 1905.

Looking across Sandyford Road towards a derelict site which used to be occupied by a petrol filling station. The former Kiosk building still stands at the back of the site but the canopy and fuel pumps have been removed.