A large boulder known as 'The Prior's Stone' sits at the edge of the notoriously dangerous rocks known as 'The Black Middens'. It appears on several of the maps here marked as Prior's Stone, Pryor's Stone, Priory Stone and simply 'stone'. It has long been used by mariners as an indicator of the state of the tide.
There is a legend that a one time Prior of Tynemouth fished from that spot, in the days before the building of the piers and the dredging of the deepwater channel, which now runs just South of the stone's position. It was also said that at that time, when the tides were very low, it was possible to walk across the river on 'the bar' at the mouth of the river (shown on the 1723 and 1796 maps)

The notorious Black Middens rocks at low tide