The biggest guitar shop in the area is GuitarGuitar in Newcastle on Grainger Street, which may be the one m t soule is referring to; it used to be in a small shopping mall unit but has now moved to a bigger, more visible location. Two floors of all the usual names, plus a very good selection of boutique brands and custom shop gear. There are a couple of smaller music shops in Newcastle as well; if you're into really nice acoustics, The Guitar Shop on High Bridge is a good shout, and they also tend to have the odd interesting vintage or second-hand electric guitar find from time to time. The other guitar shops in Newcastle are JG Windows (guitars, sheet music, hi-fi gear, records, other musical instruments) and Sounds Live (guitars, bass, keyboards, recording gear). I don't know anything about shops in Durham, Sunderland or other nearby towns I'm afraid, but all of the Newcastle shops are concentrated in the city centre and are a short walk from each other, so you can check them all out in the course of an afternoon's wandering.
