With developments on the Quayside, the north of Newcastle has been neglected recently, but plans for a new multi-million pound museum could create a new cultural quarter in the city. Christen Pears reports.

WALKING up Northumberland Street, the average visitor to Newcastle will notice only the shops.

They probably won't wander off the main road and they certainly won't venture onto the university campus. For them, a visit to Newcastle and Gateshead is about the Baltic, the Millennium Bridge and soon-to-be-completed Sage music centre. They are unaware that some of Britain's finest museum collections are just a stone's throw away.

From prehistoric rock paintings and an enormous red porphyry Roman foot to works by Francis Bacon and the world's first piece of installation art, Newcastle University's museums are a treasury of art and antiquities and yet they are largely unknown even within the North-East, hidden from view in the precincts of the campus.

Across the road is the Hancock Museum, built in the 1880s and now run by Tyne and Wear Museums. A product of Victorian society's fascination with natural history and public education, it encompasses everything from butterfly specimens to live snakes, lizards and spiders, but there is space to display just three per cent of its permanent collection.

That could soon change with ambitious plan to create a new cultural quarter around the city's Haymarket - a kind of South Kensington on Tyne. The £36m project will include a complete revamp of the Hancock Museum, which will be linked by a footbridge to a new complex in Claremont Road. This will bring together the major collections currently housed at the Museum of Antiquities, Hatton Gallery and Shefton Museum.

There have been various plans for developing the museums over the years but the idea of bringing them together emerged during the planning for the Capital of Culture bid. Liverpool snatched the coveted title, but the development is still a key part of the city's long-term cultural ambitions.

The Great Museum for the North (the scheme's working title) is a partnership between city and university, involving, among others, Newcastle City Council, the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative and Tyne and Wear Museums. The plans have been drawn up by Newcastle-educated architect and urban designer Sir Terry Farrell, who was one of the designers of the International Centre for Life. The interiors are the work of Dinah Casson, who created on the V&A's award-winning British Galleries.

Last week, the team gave a presentation to the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of a bid for £18m funding. A decision is expected at the end of next month and if the application is approved, it will mark the start of a new phase in the North-East's cultural renaissance. Iain Watson, senior curator at the Hancock and now the project's manager, says confidence is high.

"Northumberland Street is the second busiest shopping street in Britain and attracts millions of visitors from the region and further afield. We are looking to create a new cultural magnet for them, a third iconic cultural presence alongside the Baltic and Sage. It's an enormous project and one which will transform the area."

When the Hancock was built, it occupied a prominent position, raised on a hill with the Great North Road running right past its doors. As the townscape changed, the Grade II listed building became less noticeable and even those who live in the city may not be aware of its existence.

It is even more difficult to find the Hatton Gallery and the Museum of Antiquities.

"You have to be absolutely determined because they're inside one of the quadrangles and it's not just a question of finding them," explains Iain.

"Some people feel uncomfortable about visiting the university campus. They feel they shouldn't really be there. We want to change that and we hope the museum will provide a new front door, a new link between city and university."

The Shefton houses the best collection of Etruscan, Minoan and Greek art outside the British Museum and Oxbridge but it currently attracts fewer than 3,000 visitors a year, most of them schoolchildren.

It isn't surprising. The tiny museum is tucked away at the centre of the university campus between the music and classics departments. Most of the students probably aren't even aware of its existence.

The Museum of Antiquities is just opposite. Its collections are of major national significance, particularly those relating to Roman Britain, and it houses a wealth of exhibits from the Hadrian and Antonine Walls.

Neither building is a purpose-built museum - the Museum of Antiquities was used to test smokeless fuel in the 1930s - and many of the artefacts remain in storage. Those that are on display are in sub-standard conditions.

The Hatton Gallery is perhaps better-known. It has a permanent collection dating back to the 14th century, with major works by 20th century artists including Francis Bacon and Patrick Heron, but it is almost never displayed as most of the pieces are either on tour or in store.

And even the Hancock Musem, which attracts up to 120,000 visitors a year, is falling far short of its potential.

Iain says: "There is a lot of volume in the building but at the moment it's just wasted. One of our challenges is how to preserve the feel of a Victorian Museum while making it work as a 21st century visitor attraction."

While the elegant, classical facade will remain, the new plans will see the interior being gutted to make room for four glass towers. Each will contain a different specialism, with a separate block for artefacts from Hadrian's Wall and the museum's collection of antiquities.

A bridge will connect the Hancock to a new museum complex at the bottom of Claremont Road, which will include both old and new buildings. There will be an orientation area, shop and restaurant, as well as a library and education centre.

The area will be further enhanced by improvements at the nearby Newcastle Playhouse, which, in a separate development, has just been awarded a £3m lottery grant for refurbishment.

The Great Museum for the North will draw visitors up from the river, through the city centre and, like the Victoria and Albert and the Science Museums in London's South Kensington, it will form a cultural hub.

One of the most exciting aspects of the project, Iain says, is that entry to the museums will be free.

"There has been a lot of fuss about national museums being free recently. You can go to the V&A, the Science Museum or the British Museum for free but we have to charge people in this region. There is a certain element of resistance from the public, but that will change."

If the Heritage Lottery Fund bid is successful in January, it will open the way for funding from other sources, including the European Regional Development Fund. Providing everything goes to plan, work will start in 2005 and should be completed by 2008.

Iain says: "The developments on the Quayside are wonderful but this will provide a balance and create a new focus for the city."