Newcastle, the largest city in the North East, has a long and proud history stretching back to Roman and Saxon times. Its position defending the mouth of the River Tyne gave it an importance in the medieval border wars with Scotland and by the sixteenth century it controlled the coal trade from Tyneside to the rest of England. The city became an industrial powerhouse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the legacy of civic buildings, industrial heritage and housing can still be seen throughout the city. Today the city is as well known as a cultural and commercial centre as an...