NEWBURY, a town of England, in Berkshire, is situated on the river Kennet, which runs through the town. The principal streets, which arc spacious and well paved, have the shape of a Y, the angles branch ing off from the market-place, and the foot of the letter being formed by the village of Speenhamland. The houses are mostly built of brick. The church is a plain Gothic structuic ; and the town-hall is a hand some building, erected over the market•place, and near the bridge over the Kennet. Newbury hart once an extensive manufacture of woollen cloth, but serges are the only articles now made. The trade of the place has been greatly increased by the navigable canal to Reading, and will be still further extended by the Ken net and Avon canal. Very fine peat is obtained near the town. Population in 1811, 965 houses, and 4215 inhabitants. See Beauties of England and Wales, vol.
p. 110.
NEWCASTLE-uPoN-TvxE. This large, rich, and populous sca-pot t, is iiiiely situated on the northern bank of the Tyne, at the distance of about nine miles from the entrance of that river into the German Ocean. Thc ',town is itself, including a small rural district, a country ; so that to speak of it as being in the county of Northumberland, although usual, is scarcely correct. Its principal suburb, moreover, Gateshead, is in the coun ty palatine of Durham ; but will in this article be consi dered as making part of Newcastle. Indeed, as the river, although broad and rapid, is in this part of its course crossed by a bridge, at the south end of which, opposite to Newcastle, Gateshead lies, the latter place has no more claim to separate consideration, than Smith wark has to be disjoincd from London in a general de scription of the British capital. The extreme length of Newcastle, from Barras Bridge at the north end of Percy Street to the end of Gateshead on the Durham, road, is little less than two miles; its breadth, from Skinner-bourn on the south-west to Ouse-bourne on the west, about a mile and a half. Within, however, a circumference that should seem to be indicated by these admeasurements, much vacant ground, especially in the north-eastern quarter, would be included. Still the po.
pulation of Newcastle, with Gateshead, is, at the time of our writing, about 50,000, of which number nearly 13,000 are supposed to belong to Gateshead. We speak with a degree of uncertainty, because the results of thc government census now taking, (1821) have not, as re spects this town, been yet made fully known. The public journals have, however, announced, that in the three parochial districts of St. Nicholas, St. John, and All Saints, 27,898 inhabitants have been found, besides 3029 in the township of Byker, a dependency of the last named parish, and adjoining to the eastern suburbs, itself constituting indeed, in part, a suburban appendage to the town. Thus have we a population of, the paro chial district of St. Andrew and the whole of Gates head excluded, 30,927. In 1811, these excluded pa rishes contained 13,566 souls, a number which Gates head alone is estimated very nearly to contain at pre sent, and which, added to the already ascertained popu lation of Newcastle, would raise it to about 44,000. Add to the latter, say 6000, for St. Andrew's parish, which, ten years ago, contained 4784, and you have, as the entire population of _Newcastle and its dependencies, 50,000.
The situation of Newcastle, although finc, and on the whole favourable for trade, is in some respects in. convenient. The ground on which it is itself built, as well as that occupied by its principal suburb, Gates head, rises so swiftly from the river, as to. Impart a painful degree of steepness to some of the chief streets. This is especially the case with Dean Street and the Side. Great improvements have however been made of late years in the opening of new and less inconve nient avenues ; besides which, much of Newcastle is built on very nearly a level.
See Bourne's Newcastle ; Brand's History and "Ina guides of Newcastle; Beautiea of England and Wales, vol. xii. pt. I.; Scott's Border ../Intiyuities, Scc. (vv.)