The Turnpike

Routine Visit

Reputations. Some are are glaringly ignored (King of Cherry-Poppin' Michael Jackson), some meticulously cultivated (heterosexual TV presenter Dermot O'Leary), some uneviable (Jimmy Savile), some are just baffling ('Princess of Hearts'? Really?). Some are merited (Mike Tyson was feared by men and women alike), some not (Greggs snobs have a lot to answer for) and many are nowt more than a feeble moonshine of piss and vinegar (the Towers of London spring to mind. From the streets of Chalfont St. Giles!).

If a pub has a reputation it's usually for only one two things - nice food or bother, and never the twain shall meet. The Turnpike definitely had a reputation and it wasn't for its delicious array of locally-sourced platters. In the face of stiff competition it could hold its napper high in the pantheon of radge pubs once found in radius of a few miles in west Newcastle which also included:

- The Whin Dyke: drugs. Now closed.

- The Runnymede: drugs, murder, bar staff charged with manslaughter after a fatal drinking competition between father and son. Now closed.

- The Royal Frenchman's Arms: Lock-ins, sizzling steaks and ghosts. Now closed.

- The John Gilpin: drugs, stolen goods, armed robbery. Had the cigarette machine stolen one night and regulars selling cheap tabs the next. Now closed.

- The Centurion: all of the above and more - cottaging, slavery, you name it. Now closed.

- The Rokeby: hostile ambience even if it was empty. Now closed and reborn as a Farm Foods - this is an improvement.

Notice a pattern emerging? The Turnpike was the last of the bother pubs. Notorious in my youth after a machete attack, it treaded water for a few years with the occasional pagga before upping its game; seeing in the new millenium with a fatal stabbing. It was another eight years before its notoriety was sealed with a shooting. Guns - the big time. The premier league. Top of the pops. Throckley boys night out. 

The Turnpike continued to trade for a few more years before the inevitable happened; patronised, no doubt, by die hard regulars, turf-claiming dafties and impressionable young charvers looking for a voyeuristic chaser to go with their teenth of tack (nee dink) and pint of LCL. Where they, the luminous-nosed auld dongs and low-level tattie-peelers go for a night out now is anyone's guess. It comes to something when your local carks it and you've got to travel just to have a pint and see someone get their lips danced on, watching someone have Hunters Chicken for their tea is no substitute.

Status: Dead

Lookalike: The Chapel Park

In Three Words: Time Gentlemen Please