Powells Court, 75-81 High Street

Named after Thomas Powell, founder of Powell’s Almshouses. On 16th July 1728 Thomas Powell, a Newcastle merchant, left all his possessions ‘towards building an alms house for poor men and women in Gateshead’. The alms house was built soon after by Powell’s trustees in 1731, on the east side of the High Street. From 1750 it was used as the parish poor house and was enlarged in 1775. It remained the poor house until 1841, functioning also as a workhouse.