50 Fun Facts About North East England

Which sculptor modelled the 20-metre Angel of the North at Gateshead on his own body?

Antony Gormley angled the Angel's 54-metre wings about 3.5 degrees forward to give what he called 'a sense of embrace', and it stands on the mound of a former colliery beside the A1.

Which nickname for people from Sunderland is the Wearside counterpart of 'Geordie' on Tyneside?

Mackems is thought to come from 'mak 'em and tak 'em', a saying about Wearside's shipbuilders, who made the vessels that others took away, with 'make' and 'take' said the Sunderland way.

Which North East town elected its football mascot, H'Angus the Monkey, as mayor in 2002?

Hartlepool's Stuart Drummond, the man in the monkey suit, pledged free bananas for schoolchildren, then turned serious politician and won again in 2005 and 2009. Town legend says locals once hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a French spy.

Which Olympic 10,000 m bronze medallist devised the Great North Run, the world's largest half marathon?

Brendan Foster got the idea in New Zealand, after running in Auckland's mass-participation Round the Bays race; 12,000 runners turned out for his first Great North Run, in June 1981.

Middlesbrough's parmo covers a breaded chicken cutlet with cheddar and which white sauce?

Béchamel replaced the tomato sauce of the dish's ancestor, the escalope Parmesan, itself descended from Italian melanzane alla parmigiana. Teessiders also call it Teesside Parmesan.

By what nickname is Newcastle Brown Ale known on Tyneside?

Dog is said to come from an old excuse: men bound for the pub would tell their families they were off to 'see a man about a dog'. The ale itself dates from 1927.

What does the word 'bairn' mean in Geordie, as it also does in Scots?

Child was 'bearn' in Old English across the country; standard English let the word go, while Tyneside and Scotland kept it as 'bairn'.

Which nation knocked Italy out of the 1966 World Cup with a 1–0 win at Middlesbrough's Ayresome Park?

North Korea's win over one of football's great powers sent the Koreans into the quarter-finals. Ayresome Park also hosted the Soviet Union and Chile during that group stage.

Which engineer gatecrashed the 1897 Spithead naval review with Turbinia, then the fastest ship in the world?

Charles Parsons had built Turbinia in 1894 as the first steam-turbine vessel, and after Spithead turbines became standard for the next generation of steamships. The boat is now displayed in Newcastle.

Which actor played gangster Jack Carter in Get Carter, the 1971 thriller filmed on Tyneside?

Michael Caine's Carter throws businessman Cliff Brumby to his death from Gateshead's brutalist Trinity Square car park, one of the first locations that caught director Mike Hodges's eye.

Which Northumberland village, on the Tyne west of Newcastle, was railway pioneer George Stephenson's birthplace?

Wylam was a colliery village, and Stephenson's father Robert stoked its pumping engine for a wage that left nothing for the boy's schooling. The 'Father of Railways' was born there in 1781.

Which Sunderland-born inventor demonstrated a working electric light bulb to 700 people in Newcastle in 1879?

Joseph Swan's lecture at the Literary and Philosophical Society came as Edison raced to a rival lamp; the two later pooled their British business as Ediswan, selling Swan's cellulose-filament bulbs.

Which Northumberland house of arms maker William Armstrong was the first anywhere lit by hydroelectric power?

Cragside owes its power to a fishing trip: Armstrong hit on water power as a young man while fishing the Dee in Dentdale, then dammed lakes above the house to work its lights, lift and kitchen spit.

The 1936 Jarrow March of about 200 men to London followed the closure of which local employer?

Palmer's shipyard had been the town's main employer, and the marchers' petition was received by the Commons but never debated, so the Crusade produced few immediate results.

Middlesbrough's 1911 bridge over the Tees, the world's longest surviving of its type, carried vehicles across how?

On a suspended gondola, because Parliament ruled the new crossing must not get in the way of shipping on the Tees; the Transporter's cradle hangs from a high fixed span and crosses in about 90 seconds.

How does the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, nicknamed the Blinking Eye, let boats pass beneath it on the Tyne?

It tilts on its pivots as one rigid piece, the first tilting bridge in the world, and it was lifted into place in a single piece by Asian Hercules II, one of the world's largest floating cranes.

Sunderland's Penshaw Monument, built for the Earl of Durham, is a roofless copy of which building in Athens?

The Temple of Hephaestus copy hides a spiral staircase inside one column; it was shut after a 15-year-old fell to his death from the top in 1926, and the National Trust reopened it for guided climbs in 2011.

Which prime minister, who passed the Great Reform Act, stands on the 1838 column at the heart of Newcastle's Grainger Town?

Earl Grey's column was put up in thanks for the 1832 Act, which redrew constituencies and widened the vote, and the bergamot-scented tea blend is thought to carry his name too.

Gateshead's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, opened in 2002 on the Tyne's south bank, occupies what former building?

A flour mill begun for Joseph Rank in the late 1930s, the Baltic had its building work halted by the war and only started milling in 1950; it had closed by the mid-1980s and reopened as a gallery in 2002.

Middlesbrough's first major trophy, won under Steve McClaren against Bolton in 2004, came in which competition?

League Cup success was followed two years later by a UEFA Cup final, reached through two comebacks from 3–0 down on aggregate, which Boro lost 4–0 to Sevilla in Eindhoven.

Which Northumberland mining town produced Jackie Milburn and England's 1966 World Cup winner Bobby Charlton?

Ashington's Bobby Charlton was the son of coal miner Bob and Cissie, née Milburn, whose cousin was Newcastle's 'Wor Jackie'; in 1958 teammate Harry Gregg pulled him from the wreck of the Munich air disaster.

Which Middlesbrough-born striker, a prolific scorer for Boro and Sunderland, later won two European Cups as a manager?

Brian Clough scored 251 goals in 274 league games before a collision with Bury's goalkeeper on Boxing Day 1962 wrecked his knee at 27, all but ending his playing days and turning him to management.

Which footballer reached number 2 in 1990 with a reworked 'Fog on the Tyne', recorded with folk-rockers Lindisfarne?

Paul Gascoigne's 'Fog on the Tyne (Revisited)', credited to Gazza and Lindisfarne, came out in October 1990 at the height of the 'Gazzamania' set off by his tears in the Italia 90 semi-final.

By what name do locals know the Durham Miners' Gala, held on the second Saturday of each July?

The Big Meeting parades colliery banners, each with its own brass band, through the city to the old Racecourse for political speeches, a legacy of the Durham Coalfield's trade unionism.

Which Jarrow monk, called the 'Father of English History', is enshrined in Durham Cathedral along with St Cuthbert?

Bede lies in Durham because, tradition says, a relic-collecting priest named Alfred carried his bones off from Jarrow around 1020 and laid them beside St Cuthbert's, though some scholars doubt the tale.

Which London institution holds the Lindisfarne Gospels, the illuminated Latin book made on Holy Island around 715?

The British Library took the Gospels when it was split from the British Museum, which had held Robert Cotton's manuscript collection since the 18th century. Its shelfmark is still Cotton MS Nero D.IV.

Which seat of the Percy Dukes of Northumberland doubled as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films?

Alnwick Castle's Hogwarts role, in the first two films, brought a surge of public interest to the Percy family's seat, first built after the Norman Conquest.

Which Scottish king died at Flodden in Northumberland in 1513, the last monarch from Great Britain killed in battle?

James IV invaded to honour Scotland's Auld Alliance with France while Henry VIII was campaigning there, and fell near the village of Branxton to an English army under the Earl of Surrey.

Which Northumberland colliery, the North East's last deep coal mine, closed in January 2005?

Ellington shut after flooding hit the pit that month and UK Coal judged it no longer safe to work, leaving machinery worth £8 million under water in a mine that ran far out beneath the North Sea.

The Northumberland fishing village of Craster, a shore walk from Dunstanburgh Castle, is famous for smoking which fish?

Herring are split, soaked in brine and hung for hours over smouldering oak in the Robson family's Craster smokehouses, which are more than a century old, before they come out as kippers.

Which US president's ancestors held a manor house near Sunderland in the village that shares his surname?

George Washington's forebear William de Hertburn took on the manor in the late 12th century and renamed himself after it, which is how the family got the surname the first president carried; the Old Hall still stands.

Which 18th-century Pacific navigator was born at Marton, now within Middlesbrough?

Captain Cook left Marton as a boy, learned his seamanship on Whitby ships carrying coal down the coast, and was killed in Hawaii in 1779; Middlesbrough's main hospital now bears his name.

The 2000 film Billy Elliot, about a County Durham boy who takes up ballet, is set during which 1984–85 dispute?

The miners' strike ends in 1985 just as the Royal Ballet School accepts Billy, so he leaves for London as the pitmen go back to work; the film was shot on the terraced streets of Easington Colliery.

Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly first paired up as PJ and Duncan on which BBC children's drama set in Newcastle?

Byker Grove's PJ and Duncan outlived their storylines: Ant and Dec recorded two albums under their characters' names, including the hit 'Let's Get Ready to Rhumble', before turning presenters.

In Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Geordie builders Oz, Dennis and Neville find work on a building site in which German city?

Düsseldorf was only the setting: the first location scenes were shot on a real building site in Hamburg, which was then rebuilt brick for brick at Elstree using bricks imported from Germany.

Which actress played DCI Vera Stanhope, Ann Cleeves's Northumberland detective, across 14 years of ITV's Vera?

Brenda Blethyn played the detective from the first episode in May 2011 to the last in January 2025, and David Leon's Joe Ashworth, gone after series four, came back for the final two series.

Which Newcastle band fronted by Eric Burdon had a 1964 transatlantic number one with 'The House of the Rising Sun'?

The Animals formed in 1962 when Burdon joined the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, and bassist Chas Chandler later spotted an unknown Jimi Hendrix in a New York club and brought him to Britain.

Which singer from Dunston on Tyneside fronted the glam band Geordie before taking over AC/DC's microphone in 1980?

Brian Johnson's first album with AC/DC, Back in Black, became the second-best-selling album of all time by most estimates. Bon Scott had praised his Geordie performances years earlier.

Which Wallsend-born musician got his stage name from a jumper he often wore in a Newcastle jazz band?

Sting, later of The Police, was what bandleader Gordon Solomon called young Gordon Sumner in the Phoenix Jazzmen, because his black-and-yellow striped jumper made him look like a wasp.

Which Blackadder star, raised in Consett, County Durham, went to school with future PM Tony Blair?

Rowan Atkinson, the future Mr Bean, was at Durham's Chorister School alongside Tony Blair, then took an electrical engineering degree at Newcastle University in 1975 before comedy claimed him.

Which South Shields-born director, knighted in 2003, made Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator?

Ridley Scott founded the production company Ridley Scott Associates in 1968 with his younger brother Tony, who also became a film director. His father ran a shipping business in Newcastle.

Which singer-songwriter, born and raised in North Shields, released the 2021 album Seventeen Going Under?

Sam Fender put out his early singles independently from 2017, and the title track of Seventeen Going Under became a sleeper hit, climbing to number three in January 2022 after going viral on TikTok.

Which Middlesbrough-born singer-guitarist, son of an Italian father, wrote the perennial 'Driving Home for Christmas'?

Chris Rea's festive single only reached the UK top 10 in the 2020s, decades after its release, and charted again shortly after his death in December 2025. He had once hoped to be a journalist.

Vindolanda, a Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall, yielded some of Britain's oldest handwritten documents, written on what?

Wooden tablets the size of postcards carry ink letters including an invitation to a birthday party in about AD 100, perhaps the oldest surviving Latin written by a woman.

Which Roman fort at Wallsend, its name probably meaning 'strong fort', marked the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall?

Segedunum's position gave Wallsend its name, and the wall's far end lies at Bowness-on-Solway on the Cumbrian coast. The fort's garrison was 600 strong, 120 of them cavalry.

Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields, was finally garrisoned by bargemen recruited from which Middle Eastern river?

Tigris boatmen formed the Numerus Barcariorum Tigrisiensium, transferred from Lancaster, and the name Arbeia may itself mean 'fort of the Arab troops'.

How are the Northumbrian smallpipes, the North East's staccato-voiced cousin of the Highland bagpipe, supplied with air?

With bellows strapped under the arm, the piper keeps the reeds dry; the chanter's fully closed end and one-finger fingering are what make the playing staccato.

Which round, dimpled North East flatbread is classically split and filled with ham and pease pudding?

Stottie may take its name from 'stot', North East dialect for 'bounce', perhaps because the dough was thrown onto the floor of the oven, though dictionaries call the origin unknown.

Which Northumberland coastal stronghold, perhaps the capital of Bernicia, did William Armstrong buy and restore in 1894?

Bamburgh Castle was 'Bebbanburh' to the Anglo-Saxons, Queen Bebba's stronghold, and as Bebbanburg it is the lost home Uhtred spends Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom stories fighting to win back.

Which Victorian resort south of Redcar has Britain's oldest working water-balanced cliff funicular, built in 1884?

Saltburn's lift replaced a wooden cliff hoist that was condemned as unsafe, and it still runs on water alone: the top car's tank is filled until it outweighs the car below.