The Newcastle upon Tyne printA Newcastle print in a black frame, on a slate grey wall, in cold clear light.0.707

Maps · Collection 01

Newcastle print, drawn from the real map

54.9738°N / 1.6131°W · United Kingdom

This is a city that exists because of a place where the Tyne could be spanned, and it put all its bridges in the same place.

You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.

Compose my Newcastle upon Tyne print

What the map shows

Crossings stacked along one stretch, and a common with no trees

Count the crossings. Within a very short length of river, more bridges go over the Tyne than most cities manage along their whole course: each age of transport put its own span across the same narrow place rather than finding a new one. The map draws them all as lines of much the same weight, so the steel arch, the double-deck bridge carrying rail above road, and the one that pivots to let ships through look alike here. The density is true; the sameness is a limit of the drawing.

Read on

The other subject is the pale ground at the top. That is not a park: it is a medieval common, held for grazing, with no trees and no laid-out paths. It comes right up against the built streets, so the city has a hard green edge above and a hard grey edge below, at the water. Across the river, Gateshead climbs to face the town: a separate city, not a suburb, and the map gives no hint of a boundary.

Compose your own

What suits Newcastle upon Tyne

The palette

Blond sandstone for the classical terraces of the centre, brick and slate for the rest. The real colour decision is the steel: the bridges are the subject, so give the arch a value that cuts against the dark ribbon of the river rather than sitting quietly on it. The common at the top wants a pale green, almost grey, with nothing in it, because emptiness is what it is for. Render the fall towards the quayside by tightening the weave of the streets rather than by shading; on a plan, a slope shows as crowding.

The framing

Vertical, although the bridges line up east to west and suggest otherwise. The reason is the other half of the subject: the common sits north-west of the dense town, so the portrait is what holds the empty green above and the river below in the same sheet. Do not centre on the middle of the city, or the Tyne is crushed against the bottom edge and the crossings lose the room they need. Drop the centre south until the curve of the river can open, and Gateshead comes up to face the town.

The caption

The title, a line beneath it, the coordinates. A bridge, a street that falls to the water, a date: that line is what turns a plan of Newcastle into your plan of Newcastle.

What the drawing tells

Three dates that explain the city

1080A new castle gave the town its name

The Romans had already bridged the Tyne here, around the year 122, with a fort on the hill that commanded the crossing. In 1080 Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, raised a castle of earth and timber on that same hill: the new castle, which is what the town has been called ever since. Henry II had it rebuilt in stone from 1168 by Maurice the Engineer, at a cost of eleven hundred and forty-four pounds, and that keep still stands. The town is named after a building that was already replacing something older.

1213The city owns the ground, the freemen own the grass

The open ground north-west of the centre was granted to the burgesses by King John around 1213, and it has never been built on. The arrangement that keeps it that way is unusual enough to be worth stating exactly: the city owns the soil and the freemen of Newcastle own the grazing, an exclusive right they still hold, and an act of 1988 caps the number of cattle allowed on it at eight hundred. A working pasture, not a park, is why the top of this map is empty.

1928An arch built out from both banks at once

The Tyne Bridge was begun in 1925 and opened by George V in 1928, designed for the motor car. Its steel arch was erected by cantilever, built out from each bank until the two halves met in the middle, a method worked out here before the Sydney Harbour Bridge used it. Among its engineers was Dorothy Buchanan, the first woman admitted to the Institution of Civil Engineers. Before it, the Georgian bridge of 1781 had replaced a medieval one swept away with its houses by the flood of 1771, and was itself removed for getting in the way of ships.

Before ordering

The four questions people ask

Can I choose any place, any date?

Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.

What sizes do you offer?

From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.

What materials do you offer?

Four, from the barest to the most dressed.

Matte fine art paperA 200 gsm art paper with a deep matte finish: the bare print, to frame as you please.
Wooden hangersThe print suspended between two wooden hangers, ready to hang, in the spirit of studio posters.
The classic frameThe print mounted under acrylic glass in a slim frame, assembled by hand, delivered ready to hang.
Framed canvasThe piece printed on canvas, stretched over a wooden stretcher bar and set in a frame: a gallery presence.

How long does it take?

Allow 1 to 4 working days for making, up to 7 for hand-assembled frames and canvases, then 1 to 6 working days in transit with standard delivery.

Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece is emailed to you as soon as you order.

All the questions

Your Newcastle

The bridge you crossed, out of all of them, the street you came down to the water, the corner of the moor you walked. The river is the same for everyone. Which way you went over it is not.

Compose my Newcastle upon Tyne print