Travelling to Byker is a surprisingly pleasant journey if you’re coming from the centre of town as your travel past Ouseburn and over the Byker Viaduct which offers really pretty views of the Tyne and bridges.
As you arrive at the station and exit through the main doors turn left towards Shields Road and you’ll see the pub that’s geographically the closest pub to the station which is The Raby.
For reasons unknown to me, as we didn’t go in, but various people warned us off going there, so we turn left onto Shields Road and walked 5 minutes to The High Main, which is a rather large, bright and airy Wetherspoons pub.
It’s a long thin pub with the bar on the right and, well if you’ve been in one Wetherspoons you’ve been in the all so you know the drill. They had a lot of ales on offer when we visited; not just your standard offering of Shipyard or Blonde Star that you often find in the North East, Dave had a pint of the Mosaic which was recommended by a woman at the bar and thought it was the best pint he’d had in a while. Me and Ruth were starting of gently with a half of cider which cost a mere pound – and there’s not much you can get for a pound these days!
Love them or hate them you can’t deny that Wetherspoons have a good knack of picking interesting buildings for their pubs and The High Main is no exception. It’s a very spacious with high ceilings and loads of natural light and the arches over the bar – apparently the building used to be an old Woolworths store so guessing the steel arches were once a warehouse or stockroom type affair.
The massive floor to ceiling windows were welcome when we visited as it was a glorious sunny Saturday, I only wish I’d noticed the beer garden at the back sooner – you have to make the post of any outside space in the North East whenever you can!
There are a couple of other pubs in the vicinity of Byker metro as well at The Raby; The Heaton Hotel and The Butchers are also along Shields Road should you fancy your own little Byker pub crawl however can’t comment on their facilities or indeed suitability!
Contact:
Address: 63 Shields Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne NE6 1DL
Phone: 0191 228 4900
Website: https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/tyne-and-wear/the-high-main-newcastle-upon-tyne
You can see where else we’ve been on our metro adventure here
