Jesmond on Screen: Newcastle's Film and TV Locations

Jesmond is a leafy suburb barely a mile and a half from Newcastle city centre, so its place in screen history is really Newcastle's. The city and its river have drawn film-makers for more than fifty years, from a gangster classic to a long-running Sunday-night detective drama. Better still, Jesmond has a couple of genuine credits of its own. Here is a guide to what was filmed nearby, and where you can still stand on the spot.

Get Carter (1971)

The most famous of them all. Mike Hodges brought Michael Caine north to play London gangster Jack Carter, returning to Tyneside to avenge his brother's death, and the result is one of British cinema's great location films. The High Level Bridge, the Quayside, Blackhall Rocks and the streets of the old west end all feature, shot with an unglamorous honesty that still startles.

The single most iconic location, the brutalist multi-storey car park at Trinity Square in Gateshead where Carter confronts Cliff Brumby, no longer exists. Despite campaigns to preserve it as a cinematic landmark, the "Get Carter car park" was demolished over the summer of 2010. It is a reminder that screen heritage is fragile, and worth recording while the buildings still stand.

Stormy Monday (1988)

Mike Figgis, who grew up in Newcastle, set his stylish neo-noir on home turf. Sting plays a Quayside jazz club owner and Melanie Griffith and Tommy Lee Jones co-star, with the High Level Bridge, Dean Street, Queen Street and the Royal Station Hotel all appearing on screen. Figgis wove the city's late-1980s redevelopment into the story itself, so the film doubles as a record of a Newcastle mid-transformation.

Jesmond's own credits

Jesmond is not just a base for exploring Newcastle's screen locations. For several years it was a filming location in its own right. La Sagesse, a former Catholic girls' school on Jesmond Dene Road, became Elmtree House, the care home at the heart of the CBBC dramas The Story of Tracy Beaker, Tracy Beaker Returns and the early series of The Dumping Ground. The cream-and-red building supplied the recognisable exterior, with a second building behind used for interiors. The school had closed in 2008, and after the production moved on the buildings were demolished in March 2014, with housing now standing on the site. Another location lost to the record, but firmly part of Jesmond's story.

Jesmond Dene itself, the wooded valley Lord Armstrong gave to the city, has served as a backdrop for regional television drama over the years, its waterfall, Armstrong Bridge and shaded paths offering an unexpectedly wild setting minutes from the Metro. It is free, open year-round, and one of the easiest filming locations in this guide to visit.

Vera, and the small screen

Newcastle and its surroundings are the beating heart of ITV's Vera, with Brenda Blethyn's rumpled detective criss-crossing Tyneside and Northumberland across more than a decade. City-centre streets, the Quayside and a rotating cast of pubs, restaurants and offices have all stood in for the show's fictional locations, and film crews are a familiar sight around Newcastle when a new series is in production.

Earlier, the crime drama Wire in the Blood was made on Tyneside, and Newcastle's streets and skyline anchored the acclaimed BBC series Our Friends in the North (1996), which followed four Geordie friends from 1964 to 1995, with scenes shot in Byker, Wallsend and across the city.

Football and the city on film

Newcastle's love of football has its own screen moments. Purely Belter (2000), Mark Herman's adaptation of Jonathan Tulloch's novel, follows two Newcastle lads scheming to buy season tickets, and Goal! (2005) put St James' Park and its roaring crowd on cinema screens worldwide as its hero signs for Newcastle United. Both are city films through and through, and both are easy to reach from Jesmond.

Screen heritage across the North East

Newcastle is only part of the region's story. Alnwick Castle has doubled for Hogwarts, Brancaster in Downton Abbey and a Transformers battleground, covered in our guide to Alnwick on screen. And an hour south, Durham Cathedral has stood in for Hogwarts corridors and the Asgardian palace of Avengers: Endgame, as told in the Durham on screen guide.

Best for: Many of the North East's most famous filming locations, from the Get Carter car park to La Sagesse in Jesmond, have since been demolished. Jesmond Dene and the Quayside remain, and both are an easy walk or Metro ride away.

Get in touch if you know of a film or TV production shot in Jesmond that we have missed.