Holy Jesus
The Holy Jesus Hospital in Newcastle is a Grade II* listed building, which started life as an Augustinian Friary in 1291. The hospital bit was built in 1682. These days, it’s a load of offices, so don’t go thinking you can have a poke round.
For my part, despite having lived in the North East for two decades, I’d never passed the building on foot until today. I’ve never made a special effort to see it, and it is well tucked away.
The tucking is due to the disastrous 1960s town planning decisions taken in Newcastle, which almost saw this historic building demolished. It was ultimately ‘saved’—but now has the Central Motorway thundering past it just a few metres away, and is cut off from the city by the multi-lane Swan House Roundabout. It can only be accessed by a series of underpasses. It became a local history museum shortly after being ‘saved’, but this closed in 1995.
It’s not somewhere it’s easy to just happen across… although I managed to do just that when wandering the area.
This post was filed under: Post-a-day 2023, Holy Jesus Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne.