Carol Duncan - Novopod

Built in 1877, Carrington Pump House once provided the hydraulic pressure required to drive loading cranes in the port of Newcastle.

Newcastle offers surfers plenty of world-class surf breaks, as recognised by the city's annual Surfest competition and the declaration of Merewether Beach as a National Surfing Reserve in 2009. But a lot of these breaks are known only by way of 'surf vernacular'. So what, and where, are these secret locations? Here's a guide.

Newcastle's original flagstaff represented both the existence of the early colony and communications between the colony and vessels off the coast.

Newcastle East Public School is the oldest continuously operating school in Australia having started in 1816.

The Obelisk in Newcastle stands on the site of the first windmill in the town which was built in 1820 to grind flour. The windmill itself became an important early navigational aid.

Newcastle's former Central Methodist Mission in King Street has been home to one of Newcastle's fine dining establishments - Bacchus Restaurant - and now to a new generation of bar and restaurant. It is beautifully ironic that the building that was once gave comfort to the Primitive Methodists of Newcastle has been renamed after the Greek god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology.

How often have you stopped for a rest on one of the low stone retaining walls at Blackbutt Reserve? Chances are, you're sitting on the remains of the early headstones from Newcastle's first European burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral.

The heritage-listed Regent Theatre, formerly Herbert's Theatre, was built in 1928 and is considered one of the few remaining 1920's 'picture palaces' remaining in Australia. Considered rare as there has been little adaption of the building's interior or exterior and it remains recognisable as a theatre.

Newcastle has its very own castle turret on top of The Hill in the form of the Leading Light Tower, or Beacon Tower. It was one of two built to assist captains in bringing their ships safely into the port. The coast around Newcastle is littered with hundreds of shipwrecks and the pair of towers built in 1865/1866 helped to increase the safety of vessels entering the Hunter River.

Built in the 1870's, the Victoria Theatre on Perkins Street in Newcastle is the oldest theatre still standing in NSW. It's also home to the largest and earliest surviving fly tower in Australia. Now closed to the public, what remains is an extraordinarily intact theatre - just waiting for its next life. 

28 February, 2012 3:02PM AEDTLearning history with Tony RobinsonBy Carol Duncan (Presenter - 1233 ABC Newcastle)Tony Robinson talks about how to encourage a community to care about its history. 3 Tony Robinson is perhaps best known to an older generation of television viewer as Baldrick from Blackadder, but to younger generations he's known as the guy leading archaeological digs on Time Team or the poor unfortunate host up to his knees in a tank of urine in Worst Jobs In History (that story was about tanning hides for leather).In December, 2011, Tony was filming in Australia for his series Tony Robinson's Time Walks in which he visits cities to reveal their history.Carol Duncan caught up with him in Cathedral Park, what wasNewcastle's first burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral, to find out how we can continue to encourage people to care about their local history.

When Dr Peter Hendry began his medical career, penicillin was still yet to be made available. As a member of the AIF he spent three years as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and spent about a year on the Burma-Thailand railway. Without penicillin. Dr Hendry died in 2017.