Earliest reference might be 653, or even 1080 (when Walcher, Bishop of Durham, was murdered outside the church at Gateshead), but there was certainly a settlement here when Gateshead achieved limited borough status when Bishop Hugh du Puiset granted a charter in ?1184 (Beresford dates it to 1153). The charter was confirmed by Bishop Philip de Poitou in 1195. By that time the borough had mills, fisheries and bakehouses (see HER 5639-5641). The east part of the township was the bishop's park (HER 290), the south was the Fell or waste; the forest in much of the rest was cleared for cultivation, and part were disposed of even in C12, so starting the private estates typical of Gateshead. The inhabited part was small in the medieval period, - High Street/Fore Street/Via Regia (from 1295) (site of the market HER 5638), Pipewellgate (from 1295) and Hillgate/St Mary Gate (C14) along the river on either side of the bridge, Oakwellgate on the east edge of the town, and Bottle Bank (C14) running south along the old Roman road. The burgage pattern survived into the 19th century at least except in Oakwellgate which is odd, and may never have had it. According to Longstaffe the medieval road from Durham did not follow the Roman route, but passed between the old and the new Durham roads entering Gateshead by West Street. Gateshead was in Diocese of Durham until 1882. Gateshead was a municipal borough in 1835 and a county borough in 1888. A medieval charter allowed Gateshead people to take reeds for thatch {McCombie, 2009, 12}. Dated C11th.

"In front of the chapel of St. Edmund, Bishop and Confessor, stood formerly a stone cross. It is mentioned in an inquisition held in 1430 as 'a certain cross standing in the King's highway at the head of the town of Gateshead' (ad caput villae de Gateshed). It is again mentioned in a survey of the boundaries of Gateshead Fell, taken in 1647, as 'a blew stone near Sr Thomas Riddell, Knt. his house, which is fixed in the ground or earth near to the high street leading to the Southwards, close by the East side of the causeway'. Its base remained in 1783, and is shown in Grose's engraving of St. Edmund's Chapel. It marked the site known in former times as Gateshead- Head. In the year 1594 , it was the scene of a martyrdom. The martyr was John Ingram, 'a seminary priest'." Dated C15th.

At the Dissolution the Hospital of St. Edmund Bishop and Confessor was acquired by William Lawson of Newcastle, whose daughter and heir, Anne, married William Riddell, sheriff and 3 times mayor of Newcastle in the late C16. He built the mansion, to be called Gateshead House, behind and east of the hospital. The Riddells continued to live there into 18th century when, in 1711, it passed to the Claverings. As Royalists temp. Civil War, the Riddells' property was damaged by the Scots who "...spoiled many Acres of his ground by making their Trenches in it", and because the Claverings were Roman Catholics, with a chapel in their mansion, the house was burnt by a mob in 1746 when Cumberland came north to see off Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was never reoccupied. Surtees described it as "the ruins of a building in the high style of Elizabeth or James, with large bay windows, divided by stone mullions and transoms...". Only frag. to survive is an Elizabethan gateway, not on its original site, south-west of Holy Trinity.

In the late C12 Bishop Puiset gave certain rights in the forest of Gateshead to the burgesses of Gateshead, the bishops hunting there in C12-C13. The bishop's park covered the whole of the east half of Gateshead, and was enclosed by a bank and ditch. According to (3) it was bounded by High Street, Sunderland Road and Felling, but it might be more accurate to say by the rear of the properties on the east side of Oakwellgate and High Street, ?Split Crow Road rather than Sunderland Road, and River Tyne. As time passed it was used less, and decreased in size. In probably the late C13 Claxton's and Friar's Goose Estates were carved out of the park to provide a rental for the Hospital of St. Edmund King and Martyr; and in 1554 the Saltmeadows estate was leased to Newcastle Corporation. What remained became the demesne land of the manor of Gateshead. Dated C12th.

"...an ancient paved road from Newcastle to Usworth, having neither the commanding situation nor other appearances of a Roman road, forms the eastern boundary of the parish of Gateshead, and in the Heworth Common Act it is termed 'The Great Roman Way'. It is also called 'Fell Dyke', but the boundary itself is now supplanted by hedges and walls". So wrote Longstaffe in 1858. The enclosure award maps for Gateshead Fell show a continuous 'public foot road', usually entitled 'Roman Causeway', between the above grid refs, i.e. from the Old Durham Road at the N to the Wrekendyke at the S, with a bend in the middle just N of Windy Nook Road. It functioned as a boundary between Gateshead and Heworth until 1974 S of the bend, i.e. S of 2693 6080. It is still a public route of one sort or another, a metalled or tarmac footpath in its S part

A chapel and hospital of the Holy Trinity existed in Gateshead before the end of C12. 1244/49 Bishop Nicholas de Farnham of Durham founded the Hospital of St. Edmund Bishop and Confessor for 4 resident chaplains, and amalgamated it with Holy Trinity. In 1325 it consisted of a chapel, buttery, hall, kitchen, brewhouse, bakehouse, granary, byre, pigsty and court. In 1448 Bishop Neville appropriated it to St. Bartholomew's nunnery, and when that was dissolved in 1540 the hospital and chapel ceased to be used and fell into decay. In 1836 Cuthbert Ellison of Hebburn gave the chapel to the rector of Gateshead, and in 1837 it was restored by John Dobson and reopened as Holy Trinity. Its principal features in 1890: central W door, triplet of lancets in E wall, 5 lancets in each side wall, 2 blocked doors in N wall: brass indent in yard. In 1894-6 N wall demolished, and church became S aisle of new Holy Trinity. In 1969 latter declared redundant, but St. Edmund's continued in use, and in 1982 - after fire at St. Mary's - became the parish church of Gateshead. Excavations on the north side of the chapel in 1992 recorded several walls, possibly of 19th century date and an undated burial in a wooden coffin. The hospital became a house after the Reformation. There is a Renaissance door on the side elevation. Dated C13th.

Earliest reference is 1315, but illustrations of the medieval buildings suggest it had been in existence from at least the C13. Founded by a bishop of Durham for brothers, sisters and the poor, who were required to pray for the founders. Consisted of a chapel, of chancel and nave with western bellcote, and other buildings. In 1535 it owned 80 acres of land, and a close at Shotley Bridge. Not dependent on a religious house it survived the Dissolution, and was refounded in 1611 as the Hospital of St. James. In 1810 a new chapel (in 1865 to become St. Edmund's Church) was built to the south of the old one, and in 1811 3 cottages were built for the brethren and the old chapel was demolished. St. Edmund's Church (HER16521) was in its turn demolished in the 1960s, and today the only evidence for the onetime existence of the hospital is a plaque in the wall of a house on the old site, on the east side of Old Durham Road between Cemetery Road and the cemetery. Dated C13th.

Two possible Roman crossings of the Wear have been suggested, one at Ford, the other at Hylton. The first was an inference by Longstaffe, supported later by a Roman milestone supposed to have been found at Ford. Since this was in fact the Ford near Lanchester this notion can be discounted. There are two separate accounts of a mass of laid stone across the Wear at Hylton, with an oak framework, decorated stones, a lead inscription, a voussoir and evidence for the use of cramps. There has in the past been disagreement as to whether this structure (much of which was removed in 1865) was a causeway or the remains of a bridge. More recently Dymond has come down in favour of a bridge, perhaps with a causeway as well, and puts it in his Class C, ("Sites where remains exist or have existed, and there is reasonable certainty that they are Roman"). Selkirk prefers a Roman dam, while Bidwell and Holbrook doubt if the structure was Roman. No claim has been made in recent times for the existence of a Roman road in this area.

In existence early in 1644; date of construction 1643 as part of Mayor Sir John Marley's attempts to refortify the town. Lithgow's contemporary description: "Upon the Townes Northeast side, and a little without, there was a fortress erected, called Sheiffield Fort, standing on a moderate height…; It standeth squarely quadrangled, with a foure cornered Bastion at every angle, and all of them thus quadrat, they are composed of earth and watles; having the North-east side of one bulwarke pallosaded, the rest not, save along the top of the worke about, they had laid Masts of Ships to beat down the assailants with their tumbling force. At the entrie whereof there is a wooden drawbridge, and within it two Courts du guard, the graffe without is dry and of small importance…". In Feb 1644 fell to the Scots, and in the autumn of that year was slighted by the defenders. Apparently repaired in 1648. Built on high ground within cannon range of the walled town. McKenzie refers to visible remains of the "great fort" in 1827. Still visible in late19th century between Christ Church Shieldfield and Ridley Villas - Oliver's map of 1830 shows what appears to be the north-east bastion of the fort. Lithgow's description suggests that the fort was a roughly square earthwork with projecting bastions at each corner, surrounded by a ditch, known as a sconce or star-fort. It is possible however that this feature was of a more irregular shape. Said by Warburton to measure 67 yards x 67 yards, bastion 20 yards each way. No trace of the fort was found during an archaeological evaluation by The Archaeological Practice Ltd. In 2010 nor during an evaluation in the same year by NPA Ltd.

Certainly of Norman origin, the evidence being the S door of the nave ("with hoodmould decorated by that Durham favourite, the nutmeg motif..."), and in the N wall of the chancel a window, with widely splayed jambs and internal roll moulding. The date is disputed: (7) gives various dates for the different bits, 1080+, mid C12, end of C12, and (17) just c. 1200. Ryder states that the church was already a sizeable cruciform church by the later 12th century and that there was a smaller church on the site by 1080. The aisled nave of 5 bays dates from C14, its octagonal piers lacking capitals like Newcastle St. Nicholas. The nave roof is a C15 replacement, and the transepts C15 additions or replacements. In 1340 a licence was granted for the erection of an anchorage which was sited on the N side of the chancel, and rebuilt in 18th century or 19th century for use as school and vestry. There have been several major buildings/restorations: tower and W end of nave in 1740, upper parts of tower altered c. 1773, 1838-9, much of the chancel and the windows of nave and aisles by Dobson after damage in the fire of 1854, 1874-5. The tower was rebuilt by George Cansfield in classical style 1739-40. Restoration in 1874 by Austin, Johnson and Hicks. A fire in 1979 within the church destroyed much of the Victorian stained glass and furniture and signalled the end of the buildings as a working church. Another fire in 1983 destroyed the roof and the vestry. In 1988 prior to the restoration and conversion of the church, evaluation trenches were excavated below the church floor. The foundations of the C12 walls were seen to lie only 30cm below ground surface. An undisturbed burial was found at a depth of 80cm. In 1990 the building became an auction house before being converted into a visitor centre in 2003. In 2009 it became a heritage centre. Dated C12th.