Walkergate refers to the toll which stood at this junction until the second half of the 19th century. Folk had to pay a fee to traverse the Newcastle to North Shields Turnpike. The toll before was at Byker Bank, and the next one was at the Coach & Horses.

Walkergate is a relatively recent name induced by the railways, as a new name was required when the Walker station opened on the Riverside Branch. This settlement was originally called Walker Station, with the genuinely “old” Walker being a few hundred metres down the road where the Willow 2 chippy is. It was a farmstead, with the riverside being “Low Walker” and Wincomblee.

This photo you can see below featured a stone terrace from the 18th or early 19th century called Mouldwarp Row. Such an unusual name refers to the man who erected them, who was supposedly a mole catcher. A mouldwarp is an ancient term for the animal.

It featured two public houses – The Engine and the Woolsington House . The latter was rebuilt, but the Engine (later the Colliery Engine Inn) remained part of this row into living memory. The Mouldwarp name totally vanished well before though – both from the maps and our own vocabulary, as has the original name for this turnpike stop.

It's difficult to pin an exact date on this pub, as there's scant reference to its existence before the 1850s. It was known as The Engine in this decade, certainly in relation to a winding house which hauled wagons up the waggonway from the riverside up here to the Henry Pit, or perhaps the colliery engine house itself at one of the nearby pits.

The public house was licensed to sell spirits, and was occupied by Christopher Crawford and Thomas Crawford in 1862. Interestingly its also cited as the "Pit Engine" at this time. The Foresters Friendly Society met here after the forming of the Walker court in 1863. They're a fraternal type of savings scheme I understand.

It appears to have remained the same structure throughout its life, though had a bit of a makeover in the 20th century with quoins added to the corners and the top windows severed. In 1911 it was cited as being insanitary and structurally deficient which may have instigated this. Approval of the licensed was conditional on reconstruction of the premises as per a piece in the Journal of 03/02/11. Newcastle Breweries took it on as their own house from 1914, and was further modernised in the 1980s.

Does anyone remember this pub? Remarkably it was still here in the 2000s and in 1977 it was described as "a gloriously basic working mans pub". A shame really, because the row it was housed in must have been around 200 years old by demolition.