The Ouseburn Trust Heritage Group is pleased to present a talk by Richard Pears entitled “Before Dobson: the buildings of William Newton, North East architect (1730-1798)”

The talk will take place in St Ann’s Church, City Road on Tuesday 15th August at 7:30pm. St Ann’s was designed by William Newton.

Newcastle is well-known for the quality of its classical-style buildings, ranging from All Saints and St Ann's churches to the major nineteenth century redevelopment of its centre by Grainger, yet with the exception of Grainger and Dobson, few of the people who created this classical heritage are household names in the North East.

This talk will focus on an early exponent of classical style, William Newton. A native of Newcastle, son of a craftsman, he came to dominate civic and country house building in eighteenth century Newcastle and Northumberland.

The speaker will discuss reasons for this eminent position, including the influence of national architects such as Paine and Adam; the close family, business and civic relationships that Newton exploited to secure commissions, and present evidence that Newton's work is far more extensive than previously thought.

Richard Pears is a Librarian at Durham University. He is researching the life and works of William Newton for a PhD at Newcastle University.

The Ouseburn Trust Heritage Group provides a number of public talks on the history and heritage of the Ouseburn Valley.

All events take place in the upstairs room of the The Cumberland Arms http://www.thecumberlandarms.co.uk/ at 7:30pm and are free of charge.

It may look like spring to you, but the next season of winter talks starts in September!

Please let us know if there's anything you'd like us to put on for you. Drop us an e-mail on heritage@ouseburntrust.org and we'll see what we can do.