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Historic pub The Egypt Cottage goes down the tubes

Aug 9 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

The pub with a famous history

THE Egypt Cottage is one of the oldest Newcastle pubs, having sat above the banks of the Tyne since the early 1700s, and it has previously been known as the Egypt Tavern and the Egypt Inn.

The area it is situated in is often known as Little Egypt, named after the many grain stores which reminded people of the land of the pharaohs, and sailors dealing in spices who were some of its earliest customers.

On New Year’s Day 1832 the Egypt Cottage was seriously damaged by a fire which broke out in the early hours after the landlord had closed up and left to celebrate elsewhere.

A large crowd of revellers gathered and watched the fire brigade take over an hour to control the blaze.

It’s thought the fire was started by burglars . . . when the landlord was later let back into his pub he was alarmed to discover that £23 he had earlier hidden in a settee had disappeared.

The pub wasn’t rebuilt until 1873, when it was sold to McEwan’s for £6250 in 1925, passed to Scottish and Newcastle and is now a free house.

It wasn’t until more than a century later that it became a focal point for music legends when TV show The Tube was made.

The show was a magnet for some of the biggest pop and rock stars in history.

Presenter Paula Yates famously met INXS singer Michael Hutchence for the first time in the bar.

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