New century and the end of a glorious era

"THE past is a foreign country - they do things differently there." Accordingly, we step back 125 years to the dawn of the last century, recalling scenes around Newcastle in these evocative photographs.

- By DAVID MORTON

department store, Northumberland at the turn of the century Children playing in Scotswood, Newcastle, early 1900s Market at St Andrew's Church, Newgate Street, Newcastle, c1900

Not only was it the first year of the 1900s, it was the last full year of the Victorian age. When Queen Victoria, Empress of India, took her last breath on January 22, 1901, marking the end of a momentous 63-year reign, Britain was a proud, confident nation, with a sprawling empire that encompassed about a quarter of the world's land area.

Newcastle was at the epicentre of a booming North East industrial powerhouse. The region built some of the world's finest ships on its busy rivers, the Tyne and the Wear, and high-quality coal was mined in dozens of pits dotted across Northumberland and Durham.