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.

In 2012, I blogged about Benwell Roman Temple.

This is the world’s only temple to Antenociticus (also called Anociticus for short), which must mean he’s a local Geordie god, I suppose, alongside the likes of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer.

Antenociticus’s head—or, at least, the head of his statue—was found here in 1862, and is now in the Great North Museum. Apparently, his hair style suggests either a connection to the Greek gods or a Celtic deer god.

Eleven years is a long time to wait for a pay-off, but please meet Antenociticus:

I’m not sure his hair is all that different to how mine looks if I let it grow out, and—weirdly—no-one has ever mistaken me for a Greek god. Nor a deer, for that matter.

For the avoidance of doubt, Shaun the Sheep did not feature in Roman Britain, but is here as part of a disastrous charity art trail. Perhaps upstaging the local god unleashed a curse.

In the years since I wrote the original post, another carved head of Antenociticus has been found down the road at Bishop Auckland, probably from a statue in a bath house. Oh, and he’s been recreated in Lego.

I’ve also realised that Antenociticus previously lived at the (now demolished) Newcastle University Museum of Antiquities, which I visited a few times between lectures as a medical student. I recently very much enjoyed reading this account of the museum’s outreach work, written by Lindsay Allason-Jones just as the museum closed its doors.

Across the Tyne and Wear Metro, new signs have appeared.

Previously, the position at which the drivers’ cab of the Metrocars should stop in stations was marked with a diamond-shaped “S” sign. Of course, Metrocars used to differ in length, shorter services operating on Sundays, but the front always stopped in the same position. This practice ended about a decade ago, and the facility to vary the train lengths ended when carriages were permanently coupled together during refurbishment, leaving a redundant drivers’ cab at one end of each.

Recently, the diamonds have been joined by new signs indicating the point in each station where the front of the shiny new trains should stop. These are required as, later this year, the 43-year-old trains will start to be replaced by new Class 555 trains with a fixed length of five carriages. And, I can only assume, slightly longer trains mean slightly different stopping positions.

This bus depot in the Jesmond area of Newcastle is just seven years shy of celebrating its centenary. It was designed by Marshall and Tweedy, and constructed by T Clements & Sons. Built on a former public park, its distinctive art deco style was intended to fit in with the upmarket surroundings of the suburb: it’s hard not to wonder if we properly value such considerations in new buildings today. It is now Grade II listed.

It was most recently used by Arriva, a subsidiary of Germany’s national rail operator. Arriva sold the building in 2019, but continued to use it on a leased basis. It’s hard not to wonder why the political opposition to nationalisation of public services applies only to services being run by the UK government.

In October 2022, Arriva closed the site where 180 staff members worked. In a statement, Arriva promised to “ensure there would be no impact on services.” In 2023, Arriva decided to stop operating several routes which were “deemed unsustainable following the closure of the operator’s Jesmond depot.” It’s hard not to wonder why that wasn’t foreseeable.

In the 1960s, there was a grand plan for a new motorway-grade bridge over the Tyne, known as the Central Motorway East Bypass.. This was designed to relieve the pressure of traffic from the Tyne Bridge, which is still a pinch-point on the local road network sixty years on.

Though the Central Motorway East Bypass was never built, remnants of it intriguingly remain. Most notably, when the Central Motorway East was built—now the A167(M)—three spurs were constructed to connect with the new bridge. Two of these were never used, and just sit as unused road space, painted over with white hatch marks. Over the water, spurs also still exist on the Gateshead Viaduct, designed to connect the other end of the bridge. These are all quite conspicuously odd when driving past them—visible turnoffs to nowhere—but not as readily visible to pedestrians.

But one spur of the Central Motorway East was used, at least temporarily, and so it highly visible to people walking past it. Seemingly unfathomable to safety-conscious eyes today, a ‘temporary’ ramp was constructed off the spur, allowing direct access to the motorway from a tiny local road called Camden Street. This ‘temporary’ ramp ended up being used for about forty years. Nowadays, it’s gated off, though I frequently find myself strolling past it. There are also student flats which directly overlook it: perhaps the only student flats in Britain which overlook a disused motorway junction?

I suppose it can be considered a relic of a bridge that never existed… or perhaps, a relic of an era when we envisioned cars as the future.

My emotional response to this piece of abandoned tarmac is surprisingly complex. It’s a stark reminder of how our own lives often bear similar vestiges of unfulfilled plans. Each of us has dreams and grand designs that, for one reason or another, never fully materialise. Sometimes, these unrealised aspirations leave visible imprints, serving as poignant reminders of the paths not taken or goals not achieved.

However, much like the unused sections of the Central Motorway East, these remnants are not necessarily markers of failure. They possess the capacity to intrigue, to provoke curiosity, and to inspire introspection. They are tangible proof of our ability to dream and to plan—even if the outcome doesn’t align with our initial visions. Unfulfilled plans, despite their inherent sense of disappointment, play a pivotal role in shaping us. They influence our future decisions and contribute richly to our personal narratives.

Just as the remnants of the unbuilt bridge add an unexpected layer of interest to Newcastle’s cityscape, our unrealised dreams—visible or not—add to the complex tapestry of our lives.

The provision of public toilets has always been a rich seam for local journalism to tap: it seems to be one of those recurring topics that’s a surefire win for letters to local papers or calls to radio phone-ins. The seam of discontent has only grown richer as Conservative Chancellors have chosen to make cut upon cut to Local Authority funding, badly reducing the money available for non-statutory services. The resulting closure of public toilets has had upsetting consequences: disabled people and carers restricting the activities they undertake; further exclusion of the homeless; and more besides.

Here in Newcastle, we’re about to reach a decade since a lack of cash forced Newcastle Council to close its last remaining public toilets.

In a fabulously esoteric response, the City Library has worked with Newcastle University to mount an exhibition: ‘The Rise & Decline of Newcastle’s Public Toilets’. For those not able to make it to the Library (which has toilets, btw) there is an online exhibition with much of the same content.

The exhibition is very small, but a visit—even if only to the online version—is very worthwhile. I was previously ignorant of the historic gender issues associated with public toilet provision (historically, toilets for men were more prevalent than those for women). I learned for the first time the sparkling anecdote about as historic netty being re-built at Beamish Museum, but having to be closed because people assumed it to be a working facility rather than an exhibit. I had no idea that in the 1800s, the urine from public urinals was often collected for use in tanneries.

This is a wonderfully unusual small exhibition, which I’d thoroughly recommend.

‘The Rise & Decline of Newcastle’s Public Toilets’ continues at Newcastle City Library until 14 August. I’m not certain how long the online version runs for, but I hope it will be maintained for posterity.

I’ve walked past this sign many hundreds of times, often feeling a wry smile creeping onto my face at the phrase “invalid carriages”.

It sounds like a relic from a past century, conjoining images that are a hybrid of a sedan chair, a gun carriage and a stretcher. I’ve long wondered why on Earth it would be included on a road sign, and what exactly the sign prohibited.

As so often, it turns out that I was simply ignorant of the law: “The Use of Invalid Carriages on Highways Regulations” were passed well within my lifetime, coming into force in 1989. The term basically refers to things like manual wheelchairs (Class 1), motorised wheelchairs and slow mobility scooters (Class 2), and faster mobility scooters (Class 3).

Intriguingly, it’s perfectly legal to drive Class 2 and 3 invalid carriages—including simple motorised wheelchairs—on a dual carriageway. Good luck with that.

All of them are banned from motorways, though, hence the sign.

I’ve mentioned Newcastle’s Town Moor many times on this blog, most recently as it was the site of The Hoppings only days ago. Walking across it to the city centre today, those scenes feel like they might have been from a fever dream, so different are my surroundings. What a difference a fortnight makes.

As this ruminant pulled its tongue at me as I passed, I was reminded of an occasion where some friends from London visited us and remarked on how lifelike the ‘cow sculptures’ on the Town Moor seemed to be… and also of this Sunday Times article from a couple of weeks back.

As I’ve written many times over the years, The Hoppings has descended on Newcastle’s Town Moor for a week or so in the summer of most of the last 150 years. For some years now, it has formed the largest travelling funfair in Europe.

Wendy and I went for our annual wander. A close comparison of the carousel compared with last year’s photograph reveals a 17% annual rate of inflation on rides.