A 300-year-old building in Newcastle, once home to the city’s hardworking keelmen, is set to undergo a remarkable transformation. The Keelmen’s Hospital, considered the most at-risk structure in the city, has been awarded a £4.6 million lottery grant to convert it into 20 affordable housing units.
The project, managed by the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust in partnership with Newcastle City Council, is being closely watched by authorities and organisations across the UK grappling with the challenge of preserving and repurposing important but derelict historic buildings.
The Keelmen’s Hospital, a Grade II* listed building, dates back to 1701 and was initially built to house retired, sick, and often destitute keelmen and their families. These keelmen worked on flat-bottomed boats called keels, transporting coal from the banks of the River Tyne to ships too large to sail upriver – a physically demanding and underappreciated job, as depicted in JMW Turner’s famous painting “Keelmen Heaving in Coal by Moonlight.”
Martin Hulse, the chief executive of the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust, said the building was identified as being in urgent need of saving during an audit of heritage buildings in Newcastle around five years ago. “We are here to rescue heritage at risk, that’s how we get our joy,” he said.
The plan is to begin work in March and have the first residents move into the 20 housing units by Christmas 2027. The project is seen as a model for how to breathe new life into historic, derelict buildings and provide much-needed affordable housing.
The building’s history is rich and varied. It was initially funded by the keelmen themselves, with each crew member contributing a penny per tide. Over the years, it served as tenement housing and, more recently, student accommodation, with some students even claiming the building was haunted.
Helen Featherstone, the director for England, north at the National Lottery Heritage Fund, praised the project, saying, “There’s something really important about renovating derelict historic buildings for social housing, it is so much more environmentally friendly than building new properties. It’s really important that we can do this and bring disused buildings back to life.”
The restoration of the Keelmen’s Hospital promises to not only preserve a piece of Newcastle’s history but also provide much-needed affordable housing, setting an example for similar efforts across the UK.
