A North Shields Maritime Heritage Trail

North Shields is a town built on fishing, the river and the safe passage of ships. Its story is written into the Fish Quay, its old lighthouses and the steep banks that climb from the riverside to the Georgian town above. This trail links the highlights of that maritime heritage in an easy walk you can do in an afternoon, starting on the Quay and ending in the town centre. (A note for visitors: this is North Shields, on the north bank of the Tyne, distinct from South Shields across the water and from neighbouring Tynemouth.)

Where it began: the Fish Quay

Start on the Fish Quay, the reason North Shields exists. The town was founded in 1225, when the Prior of Tynemouth created a fishing settlement here to supply the priory with fresh fish, and its name comes from the "shiels", the rough huts and sheds the fishermen built on the riverbank. It has been a working fishing port ever since; 2025 marked eight hundred years of fishing here. The Quay still lands and trades fish daily, and it makes a fitting place to begin.

Clifford's Fort

At the eastern end of the Quay stands Clifford's Fort, built in 1672 to guard the mouth of the Tyne against the Dutch during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. For centuries it defended the river with its guns; today it is a scheduled ancient monument, its walls still tracing the old artillery lines above the water. It is one of the best-preserved reminders of how important, and how vulnerable, this river once was.

The High and Low Lights

North Shields' most distinctive landmarks are its two pairs of lighthouses, the High Lights and Low Lights. They worked as "leading lights": a ship's master lined the lower light up beneath the higher one, and when the two were in line the vessel was safely in the deep channel over the treacherous sandbar at the river mouth. Because the channel itself shifted over time, the lights had to be rebuilt to keep the alignment true, which is why the surviving towers date largely from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The old Low Light was remodelled as Trinity House almshouses in 1830.

That building is now the Old Low Light Heritage Centre, a gallery and exhibition space on the Quay with a café, where you can learn far more about the town's fishing and lifeboat history. Nearby, The Low Lights Tavern is reputedly the oldest pub in North Shields, and a good place to pause.

Up the banks

From the Quay, the town climbs steeply. In the days of "Low Town" and "High Town", long flights of stairs and banks, such as those around Tanners' Bank and the Ropery Banks, linked the crowded riverside where the working families lived to the airier streets above. The Ropery Banks recall the rope-making that was once a major bankside industry, the long ropewalks turning out cordage for the ships. Climbing the banks today gives fine views back over the river and the Quay.

The Georgian town and Northumberland Square

At the top, North Shields opens into a planned Georgian "new town". From around 1796 the developer John Wright laid out Howard Street as a grand processional street rising to Northumberland Square, an elegant Georgian square that remains the heart of the upper town; Dockwray Square is an earlier residential square nearby. This is where the town's merchants and professionals built their houses, well away from the smells and bustle of the Quay.

Northumberland Square is also the traditional home of the Wooden Dolly, North Shields' famous carved fishwife figure. The tradition dates back to 1814, and the best-known twentieth-century Dolly, carved by Robert "Mouseman" Thompson's workshop, long stood here; after being damaged it was moved indoors to North Shields Library for safe keeping. The Dolly remains one of the town's best-loved symbols of its seafaring past.

Make a day of it

The trail pairs naturally with lunch or a drink on the Quay, so see our guide to the best places to eat and drink on North Shields Fish Quay, and things to do in North Shields for the Old Low Light, the Shields Ferry and more.