Lambert's Leap, Sandyford Road

Inscribed stones formerly at Lambert's Leap, Sandyford Lane. Donated to the Society of Antiquaries by Mayor and Citizens of Newcastle per Mr W.G. Laws {1}. Set into a brick wall behind the bus stop outside Benton House, Sandyford Road/Portland Road are replacements/copies of the dressed stones bearing the legend "Lambert's Leap". The stones are from an old stone bridge which once straddled the Sandyford Burn. In September 1759 Cuthbert Lambert, customs officer and son of a famous Newcastle physician, was riding his horse along Sandyford Lane. The horse took fright and jumped over the parapet of the bridge, assuming it to be a fence. Lambert survived the fall of 30 feet but clinging to the branch of an ash tree, but the horse was killed. People flocked to the scene of "Lambert's Leap" and his miraculous survival and the legend was carved into the coping stones of the bridge. Twelve years later another rider, a servant of Sir John Hussey Delaval, suffered the same ordeal and survived. His seriously injured horse had to be shot. In 1827 a Newcastle surgeon named John Nicholson died but the horse survived. The original inscribed coping stone was dislodged and fell into the ravine [is this the one in the Museum of Antiquities?] and needed replacing [presumably the one set into the brick wall]. At some point after 1887 the ravine was infilled and the brisge demolished. The legend was popular into the twentieth century - a nearby public house on Sandyford Road, between Simpson Street and Race Street, was named Lambert's Leap. This closed in 1971.