rite one with the people of the town. In
midstream there was an island, where stood a little inn called the
"Countess of Coventry"; and on the island various sports were often
held, including horse-racing.

The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on the
green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and Mr.
Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he have carried
out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to stop until he made
Elswick Hall the centre of the town.

Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr. Armstrong's
hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works in the High
Bridge.

All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the autumn
work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in Hood Street,
as he was superintending his machinery construction in High Bridge, as
well as the building operations at Elswick. On some of the early
notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a picture of Elswick as
it was then, showing the first shops, the little square building in
which were the offices, the green banks sloping down to the waterside,
and the island in the middle of the shallow stream, while the chimneys
and smoke of Newcastle are indicated in the remote background. Along the
riverside was the public footpath.

The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6; and
amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle Chronicle_, for
hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press. The new machinery
rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines, docks and railways poured
in to the Elswick firm, which soon extended its works.

In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was requested to
devise some submarine mines which would clear the harbour of Sebastopol
of the Russian war-ships which had been sent there. He did so, but the
machinery was never used.

At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention to the
question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were very little
better than those which had been used during the Napoleonic wars; and
Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was made at his workshops. It was
a 3-pounder, complete with gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to
be seen at Elswick.

With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything
new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of
the new