Like the Lambton Park Hotel that, in name, is 30 years young.

However, the pub has stood in the same spot for 134 years.

Previously, it was known as the Exchange Hotel.

Like all pubs, the Exchange was shaped by the people that worked, shopped and lived nearby - in Lambton's case, they were miners.

More than a watering hole, the Exchange with its 15 beds, sitting and commercial rooms, was a community focal point - and the site of an inquest in 1883.

One John Burn died after a Lambton Colliery coal fall. His body was kept in the Exchange's cellar until the funeral.

This is just one of the tales in Ed Tonks' latest book, No Bar to Time: The hotels of Newcastle LGA.

The Charlestown author describes the book as a potted history of local operating pubs.

With information and photographs from different sources, Tonks' book covers 60 pubs in alphabetical suburb order, from Adamstown to Wickham.

He said, as a collective, the hotels illustrated the suburbs' changing social, economic and demographic landscapes.

For example, in 1916, 6pm closing was introduced in NSW; the impact was that most hotels sold 80 per cent of their beer between 4pm and 6pm.

The saying was "if you didn't drink six schooners in one and half hours, you weren't trying".

From the 1920s to the late '30s, more than 30 old-timer pubs were knocked down and rebuilt with bigger bars for "the six o'clock swill".

Tonks said socially it was bleak but architecturally magnificent as local architects Pitt and Merewether designed many of the art deco hotels that can be still seen today.

He hopes the book will inspire people to visit the hotels and appreciate them as historical and architectural gems.

■ The book is available from selected news agencies and outlets (RRP $39.95). Visit the No Bar To Time Facebook page for more information.