Work by AAG Archaeology on two untouched lower floors at Newcastle's 1890s-built Turnbull Building has uncovered some fascinating remnants from the 1930s - and also from much earlier times

You might well recognise the imposing Newcastle structure without knowing too much about it.

The Turnbull Building dominates the skyline opposite the Castle Keep and is one of the first buildings train travellers see as they cross the River Tyne into the city. Newcastle company, AAG Archaeology, has been working inside, repeating the success of its recent dig at Thomson House, the Groat Market office of the Chronicle and Journal until 2018.

Today the Turnbull Building plays host to executive apartments, but before we look at what the AAG team has recently uncovered there, what of the building's history? It was built on Clavering Place by Robert Robinson & Co, a stationery wholesaler and printer in the late 1890s.

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Despite its current name - and the large prominent sign on its exterior - it wasn't until 1961 that it was acquired by E&F Turnbull Ltd who employed it as a warehouse up to the late 1990s, sharing it with Peacocks' Surgical & Medical Equipment Ltd, who used it to make and store prosthetic limbs and surgical aids.

Looking further back in time, the Turnbull Building is built on land that originally belonged to a medieval Carmelite monastery, which stood just inside the town wall between Clavering Place and the Long Stairs. A spokesman for AAG pointed out: "Readers may be surprised to learn that the streets of the medieval walled town were not a teeming metropolis, but that there were considerable open spaces within the walls, even orchards."

Becoming disused after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, the monastery land was later sold off in the 18th century and became a fashionable place to build townhouses. In the 1850s, the new railway between the Central Station and the High Level Bridge cut the area off from the town centre and it changed from residential to commercial and industrial.

In 2001, the Turnbull Building was converted into 48 Manhattan-style loft and penthouse apartments, winning two prestigious awards. The duplex apartments became the first in the region to be sold for £1 million, and an urban legend persisted that one had even been bought by Sting.

24-hour valet parking was included, with a car park with a car stacker - a first in the region. Apartments were fitted out with leading brands such as Bosch, Smeg, Hansgrohe, Poggenpohl, Bang & Olufsen stereos, and Phillipe Starck bathroom fittings.

Intriguingly, the lower two floors of the building's southern block were never redeveloped. They were intended to be rented out as an office or restaurant, but this idea was never realised. Planning permission for flats was granted in 2011, but never implemented.

Instead, the ground floor and basement were left deserted, looking largely as they had when the building was built in 1897. After carrying out a standing building recording of the historic property, AAG Archaeology was faced with digging out the machine pits in the basement and digging trenches for the drainage and plumbing of the new flats.

The AAG spokesman added: "The basement features and trenches required a brutal 'hand dig' literally throwing the brick-sized rubble out from the deposits under the floor. Most of the finds were from the early life of the building, including old gas lamp covers and fittings.

"But there were also some fascinating pieces of printed material from bygone days which had survived by being suspended within a well-drained deposit of clinker (burnt coal waste) which keeps the paper preserved by absorbing and draining any water away. "

These rare paper finds included a Woodbine cigarette packet; fragments of a Daily Mail newspaper from December 18, 1934, with part of a serialisation of The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley; and a page of the Evening Chronicle carrying news of a 1934 Christmas Day murder-suicide in Hetton.

Also found, and probably printed in the building by Robinson & Co Ltd, was a piece of a Rington’s paper bag and some wrapping paper for Metcalfe’s Stores Ltd. These unusual finds gave a very precise date for the earliest time when the machine pits in the basement were backfilled.

Meanwhile, under the makeup of the basement floor were soil deposits and demolition rubble reinforcing the belief that the lands belonging to the Carmelite monastery were not built on until the 18th and 19th centuries.

Medieval pottery was found in the soil deposits, dating as far back as the 12th century, and there was a fragment of a cooking cauldron. Also, a single sheep’s tooth was a notable remnant from the slum area known as Sheep’s Head Alley which stood at the top of the bank, and was known for its residents boiling and eating sheep heads!

The Turner Building in Newcastle has been the subject of a recent dig by AAG Archaeology

An early 20th century advert for printers Robert Robinson & Co, Newcastle

The untouched basement area at the Turnbull Building, Newcastle

A surviving 1930s Woodbines cigarette packet uncovered at the Turnbull Building, Newcastle

An AAG archaeologist at work in the Turnbull Building, Newcastle

An apartment at the Turnbull Building, Newcastle

Inside the Turnbull Building, Newcastle, today

The Turnbull Building in Newcastle was built in the late 19th century