Newcastle Grainger Town

Summary

Newcastle’s Georgian planned town — the Richard Grainger streets of the 1830s give one of the finest examples of planned classical town design in England, centred on Grey Street, Grainger Street, and the Grainger Market.

About this location

Grainger Town is the area of central Newcastle planned and built by Richard Grainger from 1835-1842, with streets and buildings designed largely by John Dobson and Thomas Oliver. The centrepiece is Grey Street — described by John Betjeman as “the finest Victorian street in England” (though it is in fact Regency/early Victorian). The street curves uphill from the Tyne to Grey’s Monument, flanked on both sides by consistent neoclassical facades.

The Grainger Market (1835) is a large covered market hall with two main market halls — still in daily commercial use as a food and general market, with the original iron columns and glass roof. The surrounding streets — Grainger Street, Cloth Market, the Bigg Market — give a complete early-Victorian commercial grid. The Theatre Royal (1837) on Grey Street is a Frank Matcham-refurbished house.

For productions, Grainger Town gives the finest example of planned Regency/early-Victorian townscape outside London — the curved Grey Street, the Grainger Market, and the consistent classical facades give a period commercial city environment of unusual quality. Newcastle City Council handles filming permits.