Town Moor, Newcastle upon Tyne

The Hoppings is an annual travelling funfair held on the Town Moor in Newcastle upon Tyne, during the last week in June. It is one of Europe's largest travelling funfairs. In recent years, over the course of the nine days it is held, it regularly attracts around 300,000 visitors.'Hoppings' was a word for an annual mediaeval fair usually held at Whitsuntide. Writing in 1828, Parson and White explain that: 'Hopping, in Durham and Northumberland, is a local term signifying a feast, merry-meeting, dancing or parish wake'. In the 19thc. 'Hoppings' were also held in Blaydon, Swalwell, Gateshead Windmill Hills and Winlaton.Several origins have been suggested for the word, most of which relate to dancing. The name may simply derive from the Middle English word "hoppen" meaning to dance, hop, leap, bound or bounce. Another idea stems from the clothing which the travellers used to wear; that being of old, sack-like tops and pants. Clothing often became infested with fleas from the animals that travelled with the fair. People were often seen "jumping" or "hopping" about itching from the bites which they received. The modern fair began as a Temperance Fair in 1882. However it continues the tradition of several much older fairs held on the Town Moor, The Lammas Fair (1 August, from 1218), The Cow Hill Fair (18 October, from 1490) and Race Week (from 1721) during which the Northumberland Plate was awarded from 1833. From 1751 Race Week was held in the week closest to Midsummer. Race Week was accompanied by hundreds of booths, tents and stalls, and when the horse races moved to Gosforth Park Racecourse in 1882, the Newcastle Temperance Festival took over both the Town Moor site and the late June date. The organisers wanted to provide local people, especially the pitmen, with an alternative to drinking and gambling at the horse races. The first Hoppings held in 1882 included the familiar stalls and fairground rides, but also putting the shot, running races, pole leaping, triple jump, running jump, tug-of-war, bar vaulting, bicycle races and skipping competitions for children.In 1908 a fountain was erected at the top of Forsyth Road Jesmond in memory of Alderman William Davies Stephens who, as chairman of the Temperance Festival Association, had led the move to establish the Hoppings. The fair took place at Jesmond Dene from 1914 to 1918 and returned to the more spacious Town Moor, just north of the city centre, in 1919. There was no Festival on the Moor between 1920 and 1923, but it returned in June 1924, where it continued annually until 1946; a non-Showmen's Guild Fair was held that year but proved to be unpopular. The Guild showmen returned in 1947 and the Hoppings was a success with a record attendance. In 1959 the Hoppings featured in an amateur short film, viewable at the Yorkshire Film Archive. In 1985, attendance dipped to 100,000 as the recession hit. The Hoppings was even at risk of closing, but after reducing policing costs and increasing the use of the car park, The Hoppings saw a great profit in 1991. To mark the end of The Hoppings that year, a firework display took place.In 2013 after a dispute between the Showmen's Guild and Newcastle City Council over pitch and rent terms, alternate fairs were held at Nuns Moor Newcastle upon Tyne and Herrington Country Park, Sunderland. Newcastle council held an alternate event with "broader appeal" which included a funfair held on the Town Moor. The Hoppings returned to the Town Moor in 2014 after the dispute was resolved.In 2020, the Hoppings was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the decision was taken jointly by Newcastle City Council the Freemen of Newcastle who manage the Moor. In 2021 Crow Events took over full management of the event from the Freemen of Newcastle. It was decided to move the date for this year only to the 19 to 30 August to allow for the government's 4-stage plan to ease Covid pandemic restrictions to be successfully rolled out. However the event was eventually cancelled in its entirety. It will return to the June date for future years. In the 1970s, photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen took a series of black and white images of the Hoppings.The Hoppings inspired the song "Katie Was There" by Eric Boswell which was part of his 1983 musical Katie Mulholland, based on Catherine Cookson's novel, staged by Newcastle Playhouse.

The Moorbank Botanic Garden was a university botanical garden in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It occupied a 3 hectares (7.4 acres) site on Claremont Road to the west of the main Newcastle University campus, and was developed in the 1920s. Moorbank was leased from the Freemen of Newcastle until 2013, when the lease was not renewed and gardens were closed.

Westfield School is a private day school for girls aged 3 to 19 in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is a Round Square school and a member of the Girls' Schools Association.

Spital Tongues is a district of Newcastle upon Tyne, located due north-west of the Newcastle City Centre. Its unusual name is believed to be derived from spital – a corruption of the word hospital, commonly found in British place names (e.g. Spitalfields) - and tongues, meaning outlying pieces of land. North of Spital Tongues is Leazes Park and the Town Moor.

BBC Radio Newcastle is the BBC's local radio station serving Newcastle upon Tyne, the neighbouring metropolitan boroughs, Northumberland and north east County Durham. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from BBC studios on Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 206,000 listeners and a 5.4% share as of September 2023.

Wingrove is an electoral ward of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England, roughly 2 miles west of Newcastle City Centre. The population of the ward as of mid-2018 was 12,773.

Newcastle Reform Synagogue, also known by its Hebrew name Ner Tamid ("Everlasting Light"), is a member of the Movement for Reform Judaism. It is located in Gosforth in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The community was founded in 1963 by children of European-Jewish refugees. After about 20 families had showed interest the previous year in forming a Reform congregation, assistance was sought from the nearest Reform synagogue, Sinai Synagogue, Leeds, who lent a Torah scroll and some prayer books. Services were held in homes, school rooms and church halls.In 1963 the newly formed congregation bought a Methodist chapel in Derby Street, off Barrack Road, in Newcastle. This was converted into a synagogue, function hall, school rooms and a caretaker's flat, and the congregation grew. However, eleven years later, the congregation was served with a Compulsory Purchase Order and had to abandon the building. For the next ten years the community held regular services as before, in homes, school halls and church halls. On High Holy Days it used the Newcastle City Council Chambers.The present purpose-built synagogue was completed in 1982. A dedicated cemetery in North Shields has a prayer house, complete with facilities for tahara (ritual cleansing of the deceased).

Fenham Barracks is a military installation in Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England.

Sanderson Hospital was an orthopaedic hospital for children and an elderly care facility used by the NHS in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

St Nicholas Hospital is an NHS psychiatric hospital located in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK. The entrance is located on Jubilee Road. The buildings range from Victorian-era to modern facilities and occupy 12 hectares (30 acres) of land. The hospital is managed by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

All Saints’ Church, Gosforth is a Church of England (Anglican) parish church in the suburb of Gosforth, which lies to the north of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. All Saints’ is part of the Diocese of Newcastle and within the Newcastle Central Deanery. It has served the community of Gosforth since being consecrated in 1887. The building is an example of Gothic Revival architecture constructed between 1885 and 1887. The tower is later, of 1896, and has a ring of ten bells. The interior has Victorian wood carvings by Ralph Hedley, an organ by Harrison & Harrison and stained glass windows depicting the saints throughout the ages. Alongside the church building is an Edwardian church hall, a garden of remembrance and church green.

Newcastle University Medical School is the medical school at Newcastle University in England. It was established in 1834 in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and served as the College of Medicine in connection with Durham University from 1851 to 1937 when it joined Armstrong College, to form King's College, Durham. In 1963 King's College became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The university now uses the name "Newcastle University".