Masonry firm builds order book with hospital work

A brickwork contractor has bolstered its order book with £450,000 work.

Classic Masonry is repairing Newcastle’s Grade II-listed Keelmen’s Hospital.

The project includes external brickwork and chimney restoration, which bosses say will “bring one of the city’s most historically significant buildings” back into use as a 20-property affordable home scheme.

Work is expected to be finished by autumn 2027.

Completed in 1701 as an almshouse, the building originally provided shelter, food and medical care for sick and elderly workers and their families.

It stands today as the last remaining property directly associated with Newcastle’s keelmen community, having more recently been used as tenement housing and student accommodation for the former Newcastle Polytechnic.

Mike Moody, managing director at North Shields-based Classic Masonry, which is working on behalf of Gateshead and Stockton-on-Tees-based main contractor BRIMS Construction, said: “Keelmen’s Hospital is an important part of Newcastle’s heritage.

“This is exactly the kind of historic, conservation-led work that sits at the heart of what we do.”

The site’s redevelopment is being led by Tyne + Wear Building Preservation Trust alongside Newcastle City Council, with the project previously securing multi-million-pound funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England.

Classic Masonry recently restored stone façades at Cosin’s Almshouses and the Pemberton Building at Durham’s Palace Green, and delivered further £350,000 church projects.

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