From R.J. Charleton ' A History of Newcastle '

The upper part of Westgate Street has undergone great alteration of late years. New Grainger Street, with its palatial modern buildings, now cuts across it, just above St. John's Church. Before the building of that street a narrow alley, called St. John's Lane, and earlier, " Copper Alley (it is said, because the builder of it paid his workmen their wages all in coppers), was the means of communication with the Bigg Market. It will be well remembered with its high houses on either side, and the arched entrance to it from the Bigg Market.

In those days Westgate Street hereabouts was a very quiet and sleepy spot, reminding one much of some of the London Inns of Court. The high, heavy brick houses ran as at present up the one side. Opposite them the wall of the Vicarage garden formed the boundary of the street. The Vicar's Pump, with its long handle, then famed throughout the town for its fine water-in our day found to be not of the purest-stood at the side of the footpath outside the wall. It was taken away in 187o, and the well perhaps still lies just in front of the present Savings Bank. Over the wall waved the tall trees in which the crows built their nests, and the red-streak apples glowed temptingly amongst the autumn foliage of the orchard. The Vicarage-house itself stood back, quiet and retired, with its many gables, somewhere about where the Newcastle County Court is built. The testimony of all the historians of the town goes to show how pleasant a place Westgate Street was. Gray in 1649 says-" This street is broad and private, for men that lives there hath employment for both town and country'' Bourne (in 1733)-" It is chiefly inhabited by clergy and gentry;" and McKenzie (1827)-" This is a long, airy, and pleasant street, and contains several very handsome houses, having gardens or grass plots behind."

The semi-rural Westgate Street of the olden time was, however, sometimes roused from its wonted quietude, and became the scene of much stir and bustle. Periodically a fit of dissipation seized it, and, instead of the usual sleepy repose. there was clattering of carriages, and flaring of links, and sounds of music and revelry upon the midnight air. The occasions on which these outbreaks occurred were during the races and during the assizes, when the town was full of county gentry and their families. Then the Assembly Rooms were opened, and after the business of the day-horse racing or trying of criminals as the case might be-was over, the business of the evening and night commenced.

The Assembly House as in 1721 ( Corbridge)	'Modernised' 1756 as illustrated 1842 ( Richardson)

The old Assembly Rooms stood on the opposite side of the street to the present ones, in a house described in an advertisement in the Courant of Monday, May 28th (race week), 1716, as " the house formerly belonging to Sir William Creagh, in Westgate." It was in 186o, says Mr. Hodgson Hinde, the property of W. H. Burdon, Esq. Balls, play's, masquerades, and assemblies were held in it until about 1736, when the new Assembly Rooms in the Groat Market were erected. In this latter place the meetings of the Newcastle fashionables were held for nearly forty years, and in 1776 the present Assembly Rooms in Westgate Street were built, opposite the original ones.

1776 Assembly Rooms from Brand 1789

The site chosen for the new building was on part of the Vicarage garden, and a special Act of Parliament had to be obtained to enable the vicar to grant a lease of it. This lease was for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. The building is heavy, bare, and unprepossessing in appearance, but it was when built considered a great ornament to the town. On a copper plate affixed to the foundation stone was engraved the following inscription, which shows that our forefathers appreciated the advance of their age in civilisation as much as we appreciate that of ours

How many brilliant companies have gathered in the spacious rooms, and how many happy hours have glided away to the magic sound of the gay dance music, since the time when Sir William Loraine with Mrs. Bell, and Sir Matthew White Ridley with Miss Aliwood opened the first assembly in the good old time when George the Third was king! Periwigs, powder, and patches; full skirted coats, ample hoops and silver buckles, have given way to other fashions, and these, in their turn, have changed over and over again; yet still on occasion the black and grim facade lightens up at the sight of the graceful forms which emerge from the carriages as they pause before the door, and the old rooms are still sometimes gay with music and dance. Of late years they have been pressed into the service of art, as the exhibition rooms of the Newcastle Arts Association.

'A History of Newcastle' was written about 1880.