The Spanish City is a dining-and-leisure centre in Whitley Bay, a seaside town in North Tyneside, Tyne & Wear, England. Erected as a smaller version of Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach, it opened in 1910 as a concert hall, restaurant, roof garden and tearoom. A ballroom was added in 1920 and later a permanent funfair.
Located near the seafront, the Spanish City has a 180 ft-long (54.8 m) Renaissance-style frontage and became known for its distinctive dome, now a Grade II listed building. There are towers on either side of the entrance, each of which carries a half-life-size female bacchanalian figure in lead, one holding cymbals, the other a tambourine. The building’s architects were Robert Burns Dick, Charles T. Marshall and James Cackett.
The band Dire Straits immortalized the Spanish City in their 1980 hit single, “Tunnel of Love”, which from then on was played every morning when it opened. By the late 1990s the building had fallen into disrepair, and in the early 2000s it was closed to the public. A regeneration project was announced in 2011. The building re-opened as a dining-and-leisure centre at the end of July 2018.