South Gosforth, Three Mile Bridge (and Pigg's Folly)

The Three Mile Bridge carried the Newcastle to Morpeth road over the Ouseburn. A strange monument was apparently erected next to the bridge by John Pigg, a town surveyor, inscribed with biblical texts. This "folly", drawn by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm [who made a living by accompanying the well-to-do on their travels, and recorded the journeys in pen-and-ink drawings] in the eighteenth century, was removed some time in the nineteenth century. According to Bourne and the Local Historian's Table Book, John Pigg took down "a stately cross which he called idolatry" from the north end of the Barras Bridge by the chapel of St James, and built a curious stone pillar, inscribed with texts of scripture on the Morpeth Road next to three mile bridge. John Pigg died in 1689 and was buried at St Andrew's Church, Newcastle.