Tynemouth Lodge Hotel, Tynemouth

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Today my wife and I decided to have a look around Tynemouth and catch the ferry across the river from North to South Shields. It’s easy enough getting there if you use the metro. An all-day ticket costs £6.70 and includes the ferry and buses.

Tynemouth station is old and full of Victorian iron work. There’s a market there every Saturday and Sunday, it looks interesting, well worth a visit.

We had a good walk along the seafront until it started to rain. I’ll be publishing some of the photos I took soon.

We had a coffee while we waited for it to stop. And then risked a walk out to the Tynemouth Lodge Hotel, about 15 minutes out of town along the main road to North Shields (called Tynemouth Road!). The first part of the walk was along the main drag; from the coffee shop it looked like there would be some interesting shops. Wrong, it was full of cafes, bars and restaurants.

The pub is excellent and opens at noon every day. We arrived around 12:30 and it was empty. By the time we left, a few hours later, two more people had arrived. It’s been owned by the same person for over 40 years; it’s been in the Good Beer Guide for over 40 years.

We spent a couple of hours there, talking to the barman and between ourselves. They had five real ales, one of them was Draught Bass. My pint cost £4.30 (a relief after yesterday’s drinks in Newcastle city centre).

The barman was a mine of information. He told us that Tynemouth was a very expensive place to drink, apart from this pub, of course. It’s one of the signs of a good pub, staff behind the bar talking to you.

This is an excellent pub; a must be visited one. It’s been a public house and residential hotel (though not now) since 1799. A blue plaque outside says there used to be a house of correction next door, meals for the inmates were cooked in the hotel, and carried to the inmates through an underground tunnel.

Some of the TV series Vera was filmed in Tynemouth. Being a big fan of the drama, I was hoping to spot some of the film locations (I didn’t). Due to the rain (and tiredness, being old I cannot walk as far as I used to, see this post) we decided to curtail our walk along the coast. Which, along with this pub, gives an excellent excuse to return.

Next, we caught the ferry over to South Shields (there’s not much of interest in North Shields). I’ll be publishing some of the photos I took soon, though here’s one of the ferry coming over from South Shields to pick us up. My next journal post covers what happened after we arrived.

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