Now... welcome to Newcastle!

Newcastle is a Colonial-era city with strong architecture, social and cultural ties with the United Kingdom. The City of Newcastle was officially settled as a British town in 1793 by Sir Black, and Newcastle quickly became a pivotal merchant hub for trading across the British Empire. Newcastle is located on the annexes of two main rivers which both leads into the wide harbour, and this became one of the geographical advantage that assisted in the rapid economic and development boom of early 1810s. During the time British Industrial Revolution began, in the 1840s, Newcastle was already a well-fledged industrial trading hub for the Empire. With its vast docks and ports along the banks of Clyde and Newcastle Rivers, the Industrial Revolution changed the city significantly into a major manufacturing hub that supports the city’s existing trading role. Newcastle continued to grow well into the 20th Century.

You will find plenty of Victorian-era terrace houses, large and prominent Colonial-era mansions, small and cute Arts Deco buildings, 1970s Brutalist buildings and as well as a nice mix of modern buildings across Newcastle. City of Newcastle is approximately 3.2 million blocks in the area, with approximately 1.5 million blocks in the Central Business District (CBD) alone. The current progress of Newcastle is about 15%, and I will release this map once it reaches 20%.

I have built this ENTIRE city by myself, without any mods or add-ons, on a vanilla version of Minecraft (1.5.2) using the default texture pack. I originally started working on Newcastle in November 2013. Most of the buildings across Newcastle is inspired by Glasgow (Scotland), London (England), Melbourne (Australia), New York City (USA) and Brisbane (Australia). Some of the bridges in Newcastle were inspired by both Glasgow and Brisbane, many of the historical Victorian-era terrace houses and buildings were inspired by real buildings in Melbourne. Majority of the city’s brutalist buildings (1970s-1980s) came from Brisbane and London. Newcastle is generally 1:1 in scale.

Believe me or not, the architectural height limit for Newcastle’s CBD buildings are seven floors, and this equals to approximately 25 metres (82ft) high. This height limit has been legally enforced since the first office building emerged in 1947 (Colonial Mutual Building) on George Street. Colonial Mutual Building is a six-floor sandstone/steel office building to accommodate Colonial Mutual Insurance Company (CMIC), the main insurance company serving Newcastle region. In early 1950s, there were a sudden rise in interest of building taller buildings which led to the introduction of ‘Newcastle Central Height Limit Act 1953’, passed by the City Council. The ‘Newcastle Central Height Limit Act 1953’ aims to beautify the city by maintaining the height limit - with the limit of just seven floors, it will give the architects and developers an opportunity to rethink the overall design to make it more architecturally appealing. 

The ‘Newcastle Central Height Limit Act 1953’ were introduced just in time, well before the development boom of the CBD in early 1960s. Throughout 1960s to 1990s, Newcastle’s CBD had about 20 new office and residential high rise buildings rising right up to the seventh floor. Buildings built between 1960s and 1990s were often referred to as Brutalist buildings because of its brutal architecture design using exposed concrete and steels. The development boom slowly came to the halt in the end of 1990s due to lack of available lands to develop on within the Central Business District area. Newcastle City Council introduced a ‘Heritage Preservation Act 1986’ which enforces and protects the heritage and historically-significant buildings, and in only seven years up to 1993, approximately 70% of all historical buildings across CBD is listed in Newcastle’s Heritage Register. 

Newest building in Newcastle is a 25-metre Fish Lane Tower which rises on Lonsdale Street. Fish Lane Tower is predominately residential high rise targeting upper-class residents with its luxury apartments and penthouses. Majority of newest buildings in Newcastle can be found across the inner city suburbs such as Crosshouse, Southbank, South Wharf and Docklands. Crosshouse and South Wharf both used to have one of the largest seaport and dockyards but due to its river width, it cannot accommodate bigger and modern ships so Port of Newcastle was relocated abandoning these docks into the decaying state. These inner city suburbs were regenerated into modern and affluent inner city suburbs in late 1990s, and became one of the most popular suburbs to live.

There is one reason why Newcastle is very well known, and its the trams. Newcastle’s trams are heavily embedded into the city’s socio-cultures, and the city revolves around trams. Newcastle first opened its tram line from West End (King William Street) to East Newcastle (Enfield Road) in 1876 as a horse-drawn tramway. The horse-drawn tramway network quickly expanded across the Central Business District, and became one of the most popular form of transportation in Newcastle. The tramway was electrified in 1918, and quickly became a deep part of Newcastle’s heart until then. Almost every main roads across the CBD area has dual track tram tracks with well design tram stations across the city. The main roads in the CBD area are: Adelaide Street (T), George Street, Lonsdale Street (T), Chapel Street, Broad Street, Commerce Street, Swanston Street (T), Victoria Street (T), King William Street (T), Arthur Street, Market Street, Bourke Street and North Terrace (T). Any roads mentioned above that comes in with a (T) means it has tram tracks on it. Newcastle also have extensive commuter rail system, centring on the Central Railway Station and Piccadilly Station with number of suburban train stations around the city.

Newcastle is also well known for its good reputation in the international higher education field. The University of Newcastle (UoN), opened in 1932, is now ranked world’s top 50. UoN is fuelled with academic prestige with many of world’s top scholars, researchers and professors. Currently there are 46,780 students enrolled at UoN’s Central Campus (at Anniesland), with a team of over 19,760 academic staff. UoN isn’t the only internationally exclaimed infrastructure in Newcastle, RNCH is also one of the top hospitals in the world. Royal Newcastle City Hospital (RNCH) is the largest general hospital in the city, and is home to one of the largest Cancer Research Centre in the world, employing 6,600 researchers finding the cure for cancer. RNCH was originally named Newcastle Infirmary, established in 1876, it was one of the health care centre serving colonial Newcastle area. Newcastle Infirmary was changed into RNCH in 1989 to reflect advancement in modern health care and expanding hospital developments. 
There are SO many point-of-interest, landmarks, monuments, public areas, entertainment areas, parklands, museums, art galleries and many more across the city of Newcastle. By judging the map, it probably doesn’t seem much, but if you decide to explore the city as a determined tourist, you’ll realise that Newcastle have so many more to offer than stated in the guidebooks. It would be the best for you to explore the city by trams. Travelling around Newcastle by trams will give you a deep insight into how beautiful the city is, historically, architecturally, socially, culturally, and as well as how vibrant it is. Newcastle’s food culture is now booming! The city’s famous roof-top bars and clubs is now quite popular. Alfresco dining in Newcastle is a must. 

MAJOR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS:
- [ M2 ], [ M3 ] and [ M5 ] motorways
- Regent Park and the Domain
- Newcastle Zoo and Eastern Shores
- Kilbride Scheme

CURRENT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS (small):
- Central Station Expansion and Redevelopment
- Inverclyde, Abbottsford, Tottenham, Brunswick, Randwick and Strathfield inner-city housing developments
- State high schools at Abbottsford and Tottenham/Brunswick area

FUTURE MAJOR PLANS:
- Newcastle International Airport

Take care,
-WHEEL