Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 19/06/2026 21:20:00

Laid out on Newcastle's Town Moor and named after the great exhibitions once held on its grounds, Exhibition Park is a fifteen-hectare green space on the northern edge of the city centre. Its origins lie in the Town Moor Improvement Act of 1870, and it took its present name from the Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1887, which drew some two million visitors to the site. The park hosted an even larger event in 1929, the North East Coast Exhibition, attended by several million people, of which the art deco Palace of Arts survives as the only building, now home to the Wylam Brewery. A grade-listed Victorian bandstand, dating from 1875, remains as the sole structure from the 1887 exhibition, standing beside the park's boating lake. Following a multi-million-pound restoration in the mid-2010s, the park gained a new children's play area, skate park, cafe and improved landscaping, while retaining its lake and historic features. It continues a long tradition of hosting major events, including the annual Mela festival, Northern Pride and a host of sporting and musical occasions. As an open green space close to the universities and the Town Moor, it functions both as everyday parkland for the city and as a venue for large outdoor gatherings staged under temporary arrangements. The on-site brewery adds a year-round destination, serving food and real ale within the former exhibition building. With Haymarket and the city centre a short walk away and excellent public-transport links nearby, Exhibition Park is among Newcastle's most accessible and historically significant open spaces. Its blend of heritage, parkland and events keeps it central to the life of the city. Managed today by the Urban Green Newcastle charity, the park sits within the wider Town Moor, an unusually large area of common land where freemen retain ancient grazing rights and where the annual Hoppings funfair, one of Europe's largest travelling fairs, is held each summer. That setting gives the park a rare combination of city-centre access and open green space.