The history of your local Wetherspoons: Newcastle’s The Mile Castle
A staple of the high street, Wetherspoons mightn’t strike as holding a wealth of history when you pop in for a drink with a girls on a Friday night. But whatever the occasion, and whichever one you take a trip too, there may be more history steeped in your local Wetherspoons than you’d perhaps expect. Let’s take a look.
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00:00 How often do you stop to think about the history of your local Weatherspoons? I'm in the Mile
00:05 Castle in Newcastle to take a deep dive into your local.
00:09 The Mile Castle is a three-storey building located on Westgate Road in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
00:14 A centre point between the city centre and the central train station, it lopes with wood
00:18 panelled rooms and sand-coloured architecture. With a top floor that turns to a disco come
00:23 the weekend, this 19th century French Renaissance style building has since become a go-between
00:28 for first-time visitors and locals alike.
00:33 Did you find yourself here on Friday night for a couple of drinks with the lads, or maybe
00:37 Saturday morning to saturate the hangover of the aforementioned Friday night? Well,
00:42 Weatherspoons seems to encapsulate the typical corners of British culture, serving as a location
00:47 for any given situation. But more than that, these buildings are steeped in a wealth of
00:52 culture that can sometimes be glazed over.
00:57 According to the Weatherspoons website, a Roman biographer of Emperor Hadrian wrote
01:01 that the wall was built to separate Romans from barbarians. At every Roman mile, there
01:05 was a mile castle guarded by at least eight men. Between each mile castle, there were
01:10 two equidistant turrets. The Newcastle Arts Centre occupies the site of the Roman Mile
01:15 Castle.
01:16 The Grade II listed building that you are now in was designed by the architect John
01:21 Edward Watson for the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Savings Bank. Watson was born in Scotland
01:25 but trained and practiced in and around Newcastle.
01:29 The venue was taken over by Weatherspoons, who opened the place as Lloyd's No. 1 Bar
01:34 in 2009, before it was later renamed the Mile Castle, a historic nod to the Hadrian's Wall
01:38 Mile Castle, whose ancient remains sit beneath the site of Newcastle Arts Centre on the other
01:43 side of Westgate Road.
01:45 The Weatherspoons brand established itself on December 9th 1979, with the first Weatherspoons
01:51 pub opening in North London. Now, Weatherspoons has almost 900 pubs in towns and cities across
01:57 England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
02:03 Various historical photos are framed around the building, including this one about Daniel
02:07 Defoe, where the text reads "The celebrated author and government spy is best known for
02:12 his novel Robinson Crusoe, which was published in 1719. He followed that with other works,
02:18 including the ever-popular Moll Flanders. He described Newcastle as "a spacious, extended,
02:23 infinitely populous place where they build ships to perfection."
02:29 Following its long service as a bank, early in the new millennium, the building was bought
02:33 by a company for transformation into an entertainment venue called the Sports Cafe Bar. During construction
02:40 in 2002, the building destabilised, causing the roof and rear wall to collapse. Weatherspoons
02:46 then acquired the space and it has thrived ever since.
02:54 So after a little history lesson, you'll be the pinnacle of knowledge for all your
02:58 friends for your next trip to Spoons.
02:59 [Sounds of a traffic jam]