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's steel Angel of the North spreads its wings 54 metres, nearly three times its 20-metre height, and weighs 208 tonnes. It stands on the site of a former colliery beside the A1.

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

Mackems, also written Makems or Mak'ems, are otherwise known as Wearsiders, and the label is worn with pride on the red-and-white side of the Tyne–Wear divide.

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

Hartlepool's new mayor Stuart Drummond had promised free bananas for schoolchildren, delivered them, and went on to win again in 2005 and 2009. The town's folklore says it 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 staged the first Great North Run in June 1981 with 12,000 runners on the course from Newcastle to South Shields. It has run every year since apart from 2020, usually in September.

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.

Which animal is Newcastle Brown Ale's Tyneside nickname, from the euphemism of seeing a man about one?

Dog comes from the old excuse 'seeing a man about a dog', and the ale it names was launched in 1927 by Colonel Jim Porter after three years of development.

What does 'bairn' mean in Geordie, one of the words that can be traced straight back to the Angles?

Child is 'bairn' on Tyneside just as it is in Scots, and Geordie 'gan' for go likewise survives from the Angles, matching modern Dutch 'gaan'.

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, nine miles 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's dams and lakes also drove a sawmill, a laundry, a hydraulic lift and even a hydroelectric rotisserie. Armstrong had invented the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun.

The 1936 Jarrow March of about 200 men to London followed the 1934 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 that crossed in 90 seconds, the Transporter carried up to 200 people or nine cars beneath its fixed steel span; it has been shut for repairs since 2019. Prince Arthur of Connaught opened it in October 1911.

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 unit, the first tilting bridge ever built, and cost £22 million when it opened to walkers and cyclists in September 2001.

Sunderland's Penshaw Monument, raised in 1844 for the Earl of Durham, is a roofless copy of which building in Athens?

The Temple of Hephaestus was reworked as a Doric temple of eighteen columns with no roof or inner chamber, honouring John Lambton, author of the Durham Report on governing British North America.

Which prime minister, namesake of a bergamot tea, stands on the 1838 column at the heart of Newcastle's Grainger Town?

Earl Grey's column celebrates the Great Reform Act of 1832, which he passed as prime minister to extend the vote and redraw constituencies. He held office from 1830 to 1834.

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

A flour mill built for Rank Hovis to a late-1930s design, the Baltic Flour Mills worked in various capacities from 1950 to 1984 before the conversion.

Middlesbrough's only 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 born to coal miner Bob Charlton and Cissie, née Milburn, whose cousin was Newcastle's 'Wor Jackie'. Charlton survived the Munich air disaster of 1958.

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 games before his Nottingham Forest triumphs; rival Don Revie was also Middlesbrough-born, and Bob Paisley came from Hetton-le-Hole in County Durham.

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, earned him a gold disc in the autumn after his Italia 90 World Cup.

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 finished his Ecclesiastical History of the English People at Jarrow in about 731, and the cathedral that holds his shrine later doubled as Hogwarts in two Harry Potter films.

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 led an invading Scots army against the Earl of Surrey's English force near the village of Branxton, where the battle was actually fought.

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

Ellington still employed around 50 pit ponies in 1983, one of the last large industrial users to do so, and most of its coal went to the neighbouring Lynemouth power station.

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

Herring cured in Craster's smokehouse become the kippers known around the world, a business the village has run for many years.

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

George Washington's family line is traced to Washington Old Hall, the ancestral home of the first president of the United States, which still stands in the village.

Which Pacific navigator, killed in Hawaii in 1779, was born in 1728 at Marton, now within Middlesbrough?

Captain Cook's birthplace is marked by a museum in Middlesbrough, and the town's main hospital is named the James Cook University Hospital after him.

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, and the film was shot around Easington Colliery with over 400 locals as extras.

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

Byker Grove ran for 18 series from 1989 to 2006, and in 2023 Ant & Dec announced they were reviving it as 'Byker' through their own production company, Mitre Studios.

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

Düsseldorf was the first series' setting, and the 'Pet' of the title is the North East term of endearment, paired with the German for goodbye.

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 on 1 May 2011 to the last on 3 January 2025, and David Leon's Joe Ashworth, absent after series four, returned for series 13 in January 2024.

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; bassist Chas Chandler and keyboardist Price were in the original Tyneside line-up.

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 frontman of The Police took his stage name from a black-and-yellow striped jumper?

Sting was what bandleader Gordon Solomon called young Gordon Sumner in his Phoenix Jazzmen days, because the jumper made him look like a wasp. He grew up beside Wallsend's shipyards.

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

Rowan Atkinson and his brothers attended Durham Choristers alongside Tony Blair, and he went on to take a degree in electrical and electronic engineering at Newcastle University in 1975.

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 Seventeen Going Under, his second album, took its title from its lead single released in July 2021.

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 2021, decades after release, and charted again shortly after his death in 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 loaves run about 200 millimetres across and 25 deep, with a small hole or dent near the centre, and take bacon, sausage or fried egg as readily as ham.

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

Bamburgh Castle stands on the site of a Brittonic fort called Din Guarie, captured by King Ida of Bernicia in 547, and is still owned by Armstrong's descendants.

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

Saltburn's lift replaced an 1870 vertical cliff hoist and still carries visitors from the town down to its 1869 pier.