The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Newcastle Quayside Market
Patter-merchants at a centuries old Quayside Sunday market in Newcastle.
From the collection of:
Overview
In the late 60s soap box preachers, spielers, tipsters and three-card tricksters still ply their trade in the raucous open air Quayside Sunday market in Newcastle, a clutch of Tyne bridges high overhead. A writer in the Chronicle once likened it to a ‘saturnalia’. This atmospheric newsreel item celebrates the dying art of market pitchers who draw big crowds on the waterfront.
The Quayside market was first noted in historical records of ‘the town’ in 1736. The architectural critic Ian Nairn described it in 1978 as almost a ‘mirage’ with ‘its spirit intact, against all the odds’ and peppered with larger than life characters such as the Jokerman. It was then still redolent of the days when fortune tellers, escapologists and strongmen entertained the masses, but the declining Quayside area was threatened with demolitions. Grand plans for re-development came and went in the 1980s until architect Terry Farrell won the commission in 1991, and laid the foundation for the vibrant cultural quarter of today. The traditional market did not survive and the patter-merchants are long gone.
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