England Guide
The Northeast
The Castle
Opening time: Daily 9.30am–4.30/5.30pm
Price: £1.50
Address: St Nicholas' Street
Anyone arriving by train from the north will get a sneak preview of the Castle, as the rail line splits the keep from its gatehouse, the Black Gate, on St Nicholas' Street. A wooden fort was built here over an Anglo-Saxon cemetery by Robert Curthose, illegitimate eldest son of William the Conqueror, but the present keep dates from the twelfth century. Down in the garrison room, prisoners were incarcerated during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, while locals rushed to its deep shelter in World War II to sit out German bombing. There's a great view from the rooftop over the river and city.