The Leazes, Civil War battery

Two plans of Newcastle were prepared by Jacob Astley in 1638/9, prompted by the need to refortify the town as war with Scotland threatened. The northern and western parts of the town suffered damge during the Civil War seige of 1644, during which St. Andrew's Church (HER 1486) and the town wall was bombarded by a Scottish artillery battery under Lt. General Baillie sited somewhere near the Leazes. The town wall between Newgate and Andrew Tower was breached and the church itself was still under repair in 1708. A cannonball supposedly found embedded in the wall of the Morden Tower was formerly displayed there. Grey states that the suburbs out of Newgate and Pilgrim Street were "ruinated in these late Warres".