Hatton Gallery

About Hatton Gallery

The Hatton is Newcastle University's public art gallery, named after Richard Hatton, the first head of the university's art school, and it sits inside the Fine Art building off King's Road. Entry is free with donations welcome, and it is run by North East Museums in partnership with the university. It is the smallest of the city's free galleries and the most focused, showing a changing programme of contemporary and historic exhibitions rather than a large permanent display, which makes it a 30 to 45 minute visit rather than an afternoon.

Its single most significant holding is the Merzbarn wall by the German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, the surviving wall relief he made in a barn at Elterwater in Cumbria in the last years of his life, which was cut out of the building and brought to Newcastle. Because the gallery rotates its displays, it is worth checking the current exhibition listing before travelling if the Schwitters is the reason you are going. The gallery closes on Sundays, and Haymarket Metro is about five minutes' walk away.

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Free Things to Do in Newcastle City Centre

Newcastle has four free museums and galleries, a Grade I listed covered market, two miles of medieval town wall, a thousand acres of common land and a free organ recital every Monday. Here is what genuinely costs nothing, and what used to be free but is not any more.