A monument at Three-mile Bridge, on the road from Newcastle to Morpeth
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Three-Mile Bridge stands on the old Great North Road just beyond Newcastle on the way to Morpeth. This strange monument, inscribed with Biblical texts, was erected by the town surveyor, John Pigg, during the time of Oliver Cromwell and known ever after as 'Pigg's Folly'. Pigg was well noted for his 'giddy singularities', which included walking for hundreds of miles instead of riding and insisting on staying in the foulest prison cell. Charles II and the Duke of York made sport of him as a 'brainsick enthusiast'. The Company of Bricklayers forbade anyone to work for him.
The folly was removed in the 19th century and the interesting row of workers' cottages, with their tiny panes of glass, are long gone.
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