Join members of Northumbrian Cambridge Association (NCA) for a visit to Newcastle's Mining Institute. 

Date: Saturday, 10 February 2018
Time: 10am
Ticket price: £4
Refreshements: Tea and biscuits (included), Lunch (self-financing)

NCA's Winter Outing this year is to a splendid 19th century Newcastle institution, which remains active and vibrant into the 21st century. Now one of the city’s premier music venues, it remains the custodian of the North East’s mining and engineering past. The institute was founded in 1852, an offspring of the Literary and Philosophical Society, and is dedicated to research and information relating to mining, geology and mechanical engineering. It has one of the largest collections of mining information in the world and its collections include books, tracts, maps, photographs, archives, periodicals and artworks. The first chairman was Nicholas Wood, a colliery and steam locomotive engineer, and it was his friend Robert Stephenson, son of George Stephenson, who on his death left £2000 to start a fund to build the institute a permanent home. The library hall was built in 1872 in Gothic style to the design of Archibald Matthias Dunn, whose father had been a founding member of the institute. 

We will arrive at 10am for coffee and biscuits and our guided tour, beginning at 10.30am, and lasting an hour, will introduce us both to the building and to some of its extraordinary collections of materials relating to coal mining and 19th century engineering.

Following the tour we shall be visiting the nearby Stephenson Engineering Works on South Street, now restored and enhanced as one of the city’s most vibrant events spaces, the Boiler Shop. This building represents the offices and the former boiler and plate shop, which, unlike the original engineering works on Forth Banks, have been preserved. Managing Director, Daveid Philips, will meet us at 11.45am and take us on a tour of the building. Our morning will culminate with lunch at the nearby Station Hotel, booked for 12.30pm.

More information can be found under 'Useful documents'.