Whitley - Spanish City

Whitley Bay is a seaside town around 16 km northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Around 1100 King Henry I conferred it with other possessions on the Priory of Tynemouth. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Whitley was held under the Crown for a time, but changed hands quite often over the centuries.

From the late 19th century , the adverse effects of the decline of local coal mining and dependent industries were ameliorated by the emergence of Whitley as a seaside holiday resort. The opening of the North Tyne Loop railway line in 1882, connecting the coastal villages to Newcastle, benefited the tourism industry.


In 1908 the "Spanish City", a kind of open air amusement park facing the seafront was opened. In 1909 plans for new Pleasure Buildings were published and already a year later the Dome and surrounding buildings – a theatre and two wings of shop units – opened. The dome, a reinforced-concrete shell, was the second largest in the country at the time after St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Between 1920 and 1940, ballroom dancing events became all the rage, with the space becoming one of the major dance venues in the country and the BBC broadcast regularly from the hall.

After WWII the Spanish City enterd a difficult time and in 1961 it became a bingo hall. In 1972, the cupolas beneath the famous Dancing Girls were deemed to be unsafe and were removed, disrupting the balance between the major Dome and its two lesser counterparts.

Takeovers, counter-takeovers and uncertainty characterise the 1980s Spanish City. Nothing was invested and in 1999 the demolition of the fairground was announced. North Tyneside Council brought the Pleasure Buildings and looked for investors to develop the old fairground site. In 2002 the last tenant moves out of the Dome and all of the shop units are closed.

In summer 2018 , following years of redevelopment work and a £10m investment, Spanish City reopened as a leisure venue complete with Fish & Chip restaurant and takeaway, a waffle and pancake house and a fine dining restaurant.