Stay Weird, Newcastle: 10 Quirky Things About the Toon

That demonic rabbit perched on the Cathedral Buildings

If you’ve ever taken a stroll round the back of Newcastle Cathedral, you may have noticed – or been startled by – the so-called Vampire Rabbit that sits atop the back entrance of the nearby Cathedral Buildings. With its fangs, claws and bulging, manic eyes, it’s a strange (and canny scary!) sight to behold, but who on earth put it there? And why?

The answer to the first question is architects Oliver, Leeson and Wood who designed the ornate Cathedral Buildings in the early 20th century but as for why? Nobody really knows. Local legend has it that the Vampire Rabbit was placed there to scare off grave robbers ransacking the Cathedral graveyard.

Other theories suggest it’s not a rabbit at all but a hare and that might reference engraver Thomas Bewick - whose work often featured hares and had a workshop close by - or “mad” March hares, a symbol of spring in pagan religions. Whatever the reason, we’re definitely giving it a wide berth on dark nights... just to be on the safe side.

Our Primark has a Greggs and sausage roll swing

It’s no secret that we’re a tad obsessed with Greggs here in Newcastle – perhaps not surprising considering all its tasty goodies and the fact that the bakery chain was born right here in the Toon. But did you know we’re one of just a few cities in the UK to have a Greggs located within its local Primark store?

Yes, you read that right – you can shop ‘til you drop scooping up Primark bargains and enjoy a steak bake after to recuperate. Not only that, but the Greggs in our Primark even has its own swing inspired by the most hallowed of Greggs goodies: the humble yet delicious sausage roll.

Part of a series of ‘Tasty by Greggs’ cafes opened by the beloved bakery brand in Primark stores in London, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol, Greggs says it’s the perfect spot for a selfie – because your Insta wouldn’t be complete without a photo of you blissfully to-ing and fro-ing on a sausage roll swing, would it?

The cows that roam freely on the Town Moor

Picture the scene: you’re ambling your way into work across the Town Moor, bleary-eyed early in the morning only to be confronted by a herd of cows. You think to yourself ‘Am I so sleep deprived that I’m hallucinating bovine beings left, right and centre?’

Don’t worry – you’re not going mad. Those are in fact actual cows and thanks to an ancient law, they’ve got a right to be there. You see, back during the 13^th century the Freemen of Newcastle were granted right to graze cattle on the Town Moor which was solidified in the Town Moor Act of 1774 – although nowadays, the Freeman of Newcastle sub-let their rights to local farmers.

An update to the law in 1988 dictated that no more than 800 cows may graze at the Town Moor, so if you see more than that, please inform additional cows to get a moo-ve on (couldn’t resist a cow pun, sorry). If any take issue, just tell them about MP Chi Onwurah’s plans for “Toon Beef” and they’ll no doubt trot off to pastures new in a heartbeat.

There’s a whole tunnel running under the city

Deep beneath the streets of the Toon lies the Victoria Tunnel, a Victorian wagonway once used to transport coal from a colliery in Spital Tongues to waiting ships on the River Tyne. Stretching some 2.4 miles, the tunnel runs past Great North Museum: Hancock and under the Northumbria University campus and St Dominic’s Church through to Ouseburn, although only a small section is open to the public today.

After the colliery closed in 1860, the Victoria Tunnel was largely forgotten though there was an ill-fated attempt to set up a mushroom farm there in 1928 by Gateshead entrepreneur Thomas Moore (he sounds like a fungi, right?). During World War II, the tunnel found new life as an air raid shelter and was later considered as a potential nuclear shelter when the US and Soviet Union seemed hellbent on nuking the planet into oblivion during the Cold War.

Nowadays, the tunnel is operated by the Ouseburn Trust who run regular tours of its still open section including a Tipple in the Tunnel team up with nearby Hotel du Vin featuring subterranean wine tastings. Proceed with caution though, tour-goers – legend has it the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of William Coulson, a worker crushed to death by a wagon there in 1852.

It’s home to the largest inland colony of black-legged kittiwakes

Though kittiwakes usually nest on coastal cliffs, for some reason a whole host of them decided to take up residence in the Toon in the 1960s and they’ve been here ever since. Less aggressive and obnoxious than their seagull cousins, our pretty little kittiwakes – like the Town Moor cows – are a much-loved fauna feature of our city and we’ve taken great lengths to protect both them and Newcastle’s status as the location of their biggest inland colony.

When works began to restore our iconic Tyne Bridge in 2024, concerns were raised over the welfare of the thousands of kittiwakes that nest there. To that end, two ‘Kittiwake Hotels’ were constructed from scaffolding around the tower on the Gateshead side of the bridge to provide the birds with an alternative nesting site to raise their younglings while works were underway.

Unfortunately, the hotels were largely snubbed by the kittiwake colony – perhaps their tastes are a little more luxurious and we should put them up at Malmaison for a few years instead?

Urine was once our third biggest export

If you thought that our biggest exports were stotties, Ant and Dec and Geordie Shore, think again. As Stephen Fry explained in 2004 episode of QI, during the 18^th century urine was Newcastle’s biggest exports after coal and beer – the latter of which no doubt helped in its production.

So, why exactly was our urine once in such hot demand? Apparently, it was shipped to North Yorkshire and its ammonia used in the making of alum, a chemical compound then used to dye clothes – so it’s likely that Victorian fashionistas’ wardrobes had a fair amount of Geordie pee in them.

Comedian and Viz co-founder Simon Donald even posits that our tinkle trade spawned the mildly offensive phrase “taking the p**s”. While researching for his 2012 Edinburgh Fringe show Simon Donald’s School of Swearing, he says he found that the phrase originated in the taverns of Newcastle’s Quayside where sailors would gather and chat about their ship cargo. Apparently, sailors employed on ships transporting urine weren’t especially proud of it, so would make something up to which suspicious fellow seamen would reply “No, you’re taking the p**s aren’t you?” The more you know!

The Bigg Market was once home to a zoo

No, we’re not referencing the Bigg Market’s former reputation as the Wild West of Newcastle’s nightlife. It was indeed once home to an actual zoo in the mid-1960s with lions, tigers and … well, not bears (oh my), but a whole host of other critters including monkeys, exotic birds, snakes and characters including Fred the Indian elephant and the aptly named Geordie the giraffe.

The zoo set up shop in the now demolished old Town Hall in the winter of 1965 and stayed there until early 1966. The reason? Keepers felt that the animals – who usually called Flamingo Land (then Flamingo Park) home – got bored and listless over the winter months and so decided that a Christmas break at the Bigg Market was exactly what they needed. Look, it was the 60s – what else can we say?

In A People’s History of the Bigg Market, a short film commissioned by the team here at NE1, one man interviewed said it wasn’t unusual to see a camel being walked around the Bigg Market when the zoo was in town, or for Geordie the giraffe to poke his head out of the Town Hall window. There were even reports of one zookeeper taking a puma for a pint in The Old George, which probably isn’t even the wildest thing people have witnessed in the pub.

We’ve got some canny strange street names

Lots of old cities across the UK have weird street names and Newcastle is no different. We’ve got Gallowgate, so named as it formed part of the route that criminals sentenced to death by hanging took on their way to the local gallows on the Town Moor, and Groat Market which gets its name not from the medieval coin but the old Northumbrian word for ‘wheat’ which was once sold there.

Pudding Chare, meanwhile, is thought to be named after the black pudding sold in the nearby ‘Flesh Market’ (that’s just an old-timey term for a butcher’s market, not something more untoward!) and it’s said that Strawberry Place up near St James’ Park gets its name from the strawberries once grown there by nuns from the nearby St Bartholomew’s convent and used to make strawberry wine.

One of our strangest street names, however, is Dog Leap Stairs – the narrow passageway running from Side up to Newcastle Castle’s Black Gate. Thankfully, they’re apparently not named after some poor pupper who attempted to leap down them but because their curve resembles that of a dog’s hind legs – so no dogs were harmed in the naming of the stairs, don’t worry.

There’s a windmill on top of a house on Claremont Road

Next time you’re walking along Claremont Road near Newcastle University, look up and you’ll see none other than a windmill – perched on top of a house, no less.

Built in 1782 to a design by civil engineer John Smeaton, it was the first five-sailed smock mill (that’s one with a tapered tower clad in weatherboards for the windmill newbies) in Britain and in operation manufacturing wheat until the 1890s.

It was later the clubhouse of the Newcastle City Golf Club and restored in the 1970s by architect Thomas Falconer whose firm had offices there and has since played home to a number of businesses including the former HQ of cult fashion designer and Northumbria University graduate Nigel Cabourn. Though its sails have long been removed, it’s still certainly one of the most striking structures in the city.

The pointing naked man on the side of Newcastle Civic Centre

Newcastle Civic Centre’s gardens are a lovely place for a summer’s day stroll but the sight of a statue of a naked man hanging off the side of the building aggressively pointing down at passersby can be quite startling. Maybe not quite so much as the Vampire Rabbit, but you know, still somewhat startling.

That’s no random naked man, however, but the River God Tyne – a sculpture by artist David Wynne commissioned by Newcastle City Council to commemorate the opening of the civic centre in 1968. The work was inspired by a stone carving known as ‘Tyne God’ that appears on a keystone of London’s Somerset House – one of eight carvings inspired by English rivers thought to represent the fact that Romans believed all rivers had gods that protected and prospered communities living on them.

Fun fact: the sculpture was originally painted black but thanks to a fountain of water than once streamed from his raised hand, the River God Tyne is now stained a green and brown colour. Be a lot more goth if he was re-painted black, just saying.

Well, it’s safe to say that Newcastle has a rather offbeat side to it but that’s exactly what makes the Toon so amazing and such a fun place to explore. So, what’s your favourite quirky thing about the city? Let us know!

Main Image: Newcastle's Central Station, Photo by Devon Saccente via Unsplash

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