Built in 1806 by the Duke of Northumberland, the New Quay was the town’s first deep-water quay. It provided an open area for a market and fairs, and a first rate hotel, the Northumberland Arms (later to gain worldwide notoriety as ‘The Jungle’). The Sailor’s Home to its east was added in 1851, supported by the Duke and £3000 subscribed by the public. The Porthole public house, for most of its life the Golden Fleece (hence the sheep carved above the door) was the first pub in the district with the ‘long bar’ system. It was rebuilt in 1897 (W. & T. R. Milburn, architects from Sunderland). The ha’penny dodger and penny ferries plied from the New Quay to South Shields, as does the modern ferry, and the New Cut (now Borough Road) was created in the 1840s, as a route for passengers between the ferry and the railway, which had arrived in Shields in 1839 and has since been adapted for the Metro.
The New Quay was once ‘one of the busiest places in the town’ thanks to the Customs House, Shipping Office and Sailors’ Home, with chandlers, grocers, fruiterers and butchers all catering to private trade as well as shipping. Here was held the market, and the fairs, and this district was so busy that it used to be said that ‘you had not been in Shields unless you had been on the [New] Quay, along the Low Street to the Wooden Bridge, up Union Street and along Tyne Street.’