From Workhouse to World Class Research Institute :
History of the Newcastle
General Hospital site
Science on the NGH site
Much of the pioneering work which has led to our present day understanding of Alzheimer's Disease as the most common cause of senile dementia was performed at NGH in the 1960s by Bernard Tomlinson, David Kay, Martin Roth and Gary Blessed (eg http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/oap19_supp.pdf, page 4). This work continues as a major research theme in the modern IAH.
The Medical Research Council built a research unit here in 1968 as the new premises for the MRC Demyelinating Diseases Unit (previously at Framlington Place). This subsequently became the MRC Neuroendocrinology Unit, then the MRC Neurochemical Pathology Unit, finally being replaced by the MRC Centre Development for Clinical Brain Ageing.
Construction of MRC Unit, April 1968
The MRC Building was demolished in 2006 and in it's place is the Edwardson Building, the new research laboratories of the IAH. It is named after Professor Jim Edwardson, director of the MRC Unit for 25 years.
The part of the site now occupied by the new buildings on the Campus for Ageing and Vitality used to house the workhouse stables and piggeries. The remaining farm buildings were demolished in 2001 to make way for the Henry Wellcome building. Extensive grouting of the ground under the site of this and the other new developments was needed because of the proximity of old colliery workings to the surface.
