THE FORTH HOTEL has been around longer than most bars on the West Side of the city centre, but has emerged from a recent refit looking spic-and-span. It’s a rarity in the brewery makeover game – an old pub that appeals to a contemporary crowd.

Larger windows give the bar a more spacious feel, and an apparently random selection of auction room furniture will make any Fenham flat-renter with vaguely artistic or Bohemian aspirations, feel at home.

Despite its ‘lived in’ ambience, The Forth makes no great play of its long and colourful past. Indeed, some of the lunchtime regulars may choke on their spinach and ricotta ravioli, if they knew that past landlords of this former whore house include a convicted killer and an ex-World Heavyweight boxing champion.

John Babacombe Lee managed the bar shortly before the First World War. Sentenced to death for murder, he survived three attempts to hang him, due to dodgy gallows. He was released from prison and worked for a local brewery as a crowd-puller. People flocked to the Forth to drink with a man who was officially dead.

Next up was Tommy Burns, a Canadian boxer who became Heavyweight Champion of the world and later married a local actress, Dorothea Hall, who he met while in Newcastle for an exhibition bout at St. James' Hall.

He ran the Forth between 1922 and 1927.The pub became the scene of regular illegal fights upstairs, where people were battered senseless for the price of a pint. Big money also changed hands, betting on bare-knuckle grudge matches between local coppers and villains.

After World War 2, Pink Lane gained notoriety for prostitution, and the Forth Hotel provided accommodation on an hourly basis.

The pub used to have a bar called the ‘News Room’, where hacks from the Chronicle would wait for ‘celebrities’ arriving at the Central Station.

It was here that the Pierrepoint family – three generations of hangmen – would unwind after work at Durham gaol, always happy to talk to locals about their work.

And just before heading to the station for the last train back to London, they’d raise a glass to the picture of John Babacombe Lee behind the bar – the one that got away.

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THE FIRST night club in the Bigg Market for fifteen years is nearing completion, and should be open in a month or so. Surprisingly, considering its loud and raucous reputation, the Bigg Market all but closes down at 11pm.

Ultimate Leisure – who have several pubs in the area - see the club as an opportunity to stop the pre-closing time drift towards the Quayside, which has several late-opening establishments.

The as yet unnamed club occupies the site of former department store Binns, although there’s not much of it to see from the street.

So workmen have painted a sign on its exterior, lest anyone should doubt that something big is about to happen. But they’re not too big on spelling: Bigg Market has two ‘g’s.

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NOT QUITE in the Bigg Market but near enough, Mosley Street is the location of another superclub, opening later this year.
Absolute Leisure are spending £2m converting a former bank into a four-floor, 1,000-capacity venue, opposite Johnny Ringos.
The company have just spent half a million refitting the floating nightclub Tuxedo Princess, and will take their total spend to £6m with the opening of a new Quayside Italian restaurant and apartment complex.

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ONE OF the city’s oldest clubs, Julies, spent £1.25m on a facelift last year, but faced closure for carrying out the work without permission. Whilst it’s OK to build hideous Eastern Bloc apartment blocks elsewhere on the Quayside, changing the frontage of the club got them in hot water with the Planning Department.