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The Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is best known for its proud history of industry, its football club, and its vibrant nightlife. Many people who walk the busy streets of the Toon, are unfamiliar with its dark history: real life witch trials, public executions, and of course, the terrifying Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle!

Lenora

April 1, 2026

7–10 minutes

Architecture, Cathedral Buildings, Easter, Folklore, Freemasons, Gargoyles, Grotesques, Monty Python, Mystery, Newcastle Cathedral, Rabbit, Sir George Hare Philipson, Witches, witches and hares

In 1975, The Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie introduced the world to the now legendary Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. A cute fluffy bunny which, as Tim the Enchanter warned, was “the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on! […] with nasty, big, pointy teeth!” ¹ A killer rabbit with a penchant for ripping your throat out as King Arthur’s hapless knights soon discovered. But did you know that Newcastle Upon Tyne has its very own killer bunny, known locally as The Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle?

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, from Monty Phyton’s Holy Grail, Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. EMI Films, 1975.

The Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle

Newcastle upon Tyne is best known for its proud history of industry and invention, its famous football club, and its vibrant nightlife. Many people who walk the busy streets of the Toon, are unfamiliar with its dark side: real life witch trials, public execution and dissection, and of course, the vampire rabbit.

Unlike the former two very dark tales from Newcastle, the Vampire Rabbit is of a lighter order. More of an interesting conversation piece for those who seek it out or come across it by accident.

Cathedral Buildings

In 1901, architects Oliver, Leeson, and Woods built Cathedral Buildings on Dean Street, Newcastle. The construction is five stories high, built of red brick and embellished with fanciful Jacobean style decorations. In true fin de siècle style, it is an over-the-top frothy confection of a building, designed to house offices and shops (it still does) with absolutely no air of mystery about it at all. It is only when you walk down the narrow street behind the building, in the shadow of St Nicholas Cathedral, that the mystery unfolds.

A passerby, chancing to look up to admire the grand sweeping decorations above the back entrance to Cathedral Buildings, might be surprised to see a rather vicious looking black rabbit glaring down at them, teeth bared, claws dripping blood, from its perch atop the ornate, but otherwise inoffensive, archway.

The Rabbit

In the past twenty or thirty years the Vampire Rabbit has gained some local notoriety and acclaim (there is even a bar named after it). Its presence on a late Victorian/Edwardian building is a mystery that people want to solve. Various theories have been put forward. One theory is that it is a gargoyle offering some form of spiritual protection to the Cathedral. However, as Icy Sedgewick points out, gargoyles have specific functions as rain spouts, the rabbit does not fulfil this purpose, so describing it as a gargoyle is inaccurate. It is more properly described as a Grotesque, a strange piece of decoration on an very over the top building. ²

The Vampire Rabbit, bloody claws on show. Image by Lenora.

Gargoyles, grotesques and grave robbers

So, if the rabbit is not a gargoyle facing off against demons attacking the cathedral, then what is its purpose?

One piece of local lore claims it was intended to frighten off grave robbers in the Cathedral burial grounds below it (now a carpark). This is unlikely for a number of reasons, the first being, would people prepared to dig up and steal a corpse, really be scared off by a stone bunny, that they couldn’t see in the dark anyway? However, the main argument against this theory is that grave robbing was not a problem faced by people in 1901. After the Anatomy Act of 1832, grave robbing as an occupation became virtually defunct because anatomists could obtain fresh corpses by legal means.

Easter Bunnies and clever jokes

Hares and rabbits have been associated with fertility and sexuality from time immemorial and across the continents, from Africa, to Asia, to Europe. The ancient Greeks linked the hare to Aphrodite and her son Eros. In medieval symbolism, the hare or rabbit was often interchangeable and represented fertility, love, lust. This is reflected in the old English word coney derived from the Latin cuniculus which was also a slang word for female genitalia. In sharp contrast, the image of the white rabbit also symbolised purity and salvation when associated with the Virgin Mary. ³

Madonna of the Rabbits by Titian. Louvre Museum. Public domain.

In folkloric traditions, hares have figured in ritual practices since the Neolithic and there is evidence going back to the 1600s in Germany of a tradition of the Easter Hare bringing eggs for the children. England too had long standing traditions of Easter and Hares – including eating hare at easter. The theory is that eating hares would ward off witches (who often transformed into hares) and doing so would banish winter and bring in the season of spring regrowth.⁴

In the case of the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle, giving it an ancient folkloric backstory might be a bit of a reach. However, the garlands carved around it indicate abundance and include what looks like a pomegranate – a fruit known for its links to life, fertility, and renewal (the story of Persephone, in ancient Greek mythology) as well as bursting pea pods, another symbol of fertility, community and even marriage.⁵

Icy Sedgewick has pondered if the rabbit or hare is placed deliberately facing the cathedral due to the animal’s folkloric associations with witchcraft, positing the idea that someone connected with the construction and design may have had an issue with Christianity. While hard to prove, it is a fascinating thought that perhaps the entire purpose was to allow someone to cock a snook at traditional Christian values.⁶

The location, facing the Cathedral, could also suggest that the rabbit was placed there as an erudite joke, perhaps a reference to the killer bunnies of medieval marginalia. From St Augustine onwards, hares and rabbits have been connected with timidity, and weakness, used to describe how men were weak in the face of their fears. The hare or rabbit was also associated with cowardly soldiers fleeing their pursuers. Perhaps this is why medieval scribes revelled in depicting vicious rabbits attacking cowardly knights in their illuminated manuscripts. Examples can be found of rabbit knights dressed in full armour engaging in various murderous pass times from stabbing to beheading and even flaying their foes. This is almost certainly where Monty Python found their inspiration for the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.⁷

Mad March hare or at it like rabbits?

Sir George Hare Philipson, RVI Doctor & founder of the Masonic Lodge at Durham Cathedral. He was a friend of one of the architects, William H Hood, who may himself have been a Freemason.⁸ Hares figure in masonic symbolism and of course a Freemason by the name of Hare, would be ripe for punning. However much I like this idea, personally, this would seem to have been an elaborate and costly joke to play with only a limited audience who would get the joke. Nevertheless, it is an appealing idea.

Square and Compass Freemason symbol Image by By SgtShyGuy – Own work, CC0,

Not so scary after all?

It is worth, considering that in the past, the rabbit would have been marginally less scary than it appears now. (I say marginally, because looking at the photo below, in my opinion, even in the past, looked quite alarming). Originally it was white like the stonework around it, its ears were also smaller and not so aggressively tilted. The story goes that the ears were accidentally knocked off by a workman who replaced them the wrong way round, and completely changed the character of the sculpture. A renovation in the 1990s completed the Gothic transformation by giving the rabbit a radically new look. It went from being an inoffensive white bunny, to midnight black, bloody clawed demon rabbit, something straight out of a nightmare, all with a simple paint job. And with that, the legend of the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle really took off.

The Vampire Rabbit in1987 before being repainted. Image by Frank Manders 1987

Conclusion

My view is that the rabbit is intended to share its traditional fertility-based meaning, this is based on the original look of the sculpture as a much less aggressive rabbit, its associated iconography of abundance, fertility, and rebirth, and its position overlooking the cathedral, a place of birth, marriages, death & potentially resurrection. Either that or it’s just a wabbit.

Whether a rabbit or a hare, and whatever its purpose, the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle, continues to fascinate. Perhaps it is our very human desire to tell stories and explain mysteries that keeps its legend alive. Next time you are in Newcastle, make sure to check out this hidden curiosity and let us know your thoughts on this intriguing sculpture in the comments below.

Free image/jpeg, Resolution: 1482×1000, File size: 218Kb, Bugs Bunny lays on his back with carrot in hand, Cartoon character

That’s all folks!

Notes

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Icy Sedgwick, Who or what is the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle upon Tyne?
Tok Thompson, The Ancient Origins of the Easter Bunny
Ibid
TW Sitelines
Icy Sedgwick, Who or what is the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle upon Tyne?
Emily McLemore, Medieval Rabbits: Ancient Symbolism, English Migration, and Manuscript Marginalia
Adam Curtis, ‘Vampire Rabbit’, St Nicholas Church Yard