Gosforth Park

Gosforth Park is a park north of Gosforth in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It houses Newcastle Racecourse, Virgin Money Unity Arena, a Britannia hotel, two golf courses, a garden centre and a football centre. It is also home to Gosforth Nature Reserve, a private SSSI managed by the Natural History Society of Northumbria, consisting of a lake and woodland. The park was laid out by Charles Brandling (1733–1802), a wealthy coal-mine owner and local politician, to adorn his new mansion, Gosforth House (now Brandling House, the racecourse hospitality and conference centre), built 1755–64. Up to the 1950s tramcars came into the park on race days through a special gate from what was then the A1 Great North Road. Between 2016 and 2019 the two walled gardens and icehouse at Gosforth Park were the subject of archaeological investigations by AAG Archaeology, prior to the gardens having houses built within them.