The Royal Arcade (1832) and Swan House Roundabout (1969)
The Old Town Hall (1863) and No. 1 Cathedral Square (Jobcentre Plus) (1973)
The Pearl Assurance House (19th Century, 1971)
Kelmsley House, Westgate House (1972) and Vita Student Newcastle (2016)
Newcastle City Library (1881, 1968, 2009)
YMCA Building (1900) and Eldon Square Shopping Centre Entrance (2016)
The Douglas Hotel (1877), Baron House (1971) and Hampton Hilton (2015)
Old Eldon Square (1840) and Eldon Square (1976)
Some great photos – really interesting! x
Sent from Samsung tablet
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The council (still Labour) are continuing to lay waste to our architectural heritage. Look at what is happening to New Bridge Street and the Odeon cinema site. Look at all the buildings being either demolished or refitted to provide housing for students whilst locals are unable to access social housing!
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Totally agree. Newcastle is been ruined by the horrible glass buildings of the universitys. Some one help!
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A very useful set of images: I hadn’t seen most of the ‘before’ pictures previously.
On the general theme of building loss and the sixties’ enthusiasm for concrete, it is easy to overlook the contempt with which victorian architecture was held in the early and middle twentieth centuries, nationally as well as locally. When The Victorian Society (the preservation society for victorian and edwardian buildings) was founded around 1960, it was very much a minority view that 19th century buildings had any kind of merit. Reading the early history of the society is sobering: it is astonishing – to us – to see how close St Pancras came to demolition.
And it wasn’t just planners, councillors and contractors who had it in for victorian buildings. Victorian houses were gutted of much of their ornamentation to provide clean, modern spaces: fireplaces were taken out, coving and picture rails removed, doors boarded over.
Finally, we should note that valuing heritage is as much a cultural phenomenon as wanting to replace old buildings with new ones.
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Very insightful, thanks Huw.
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You probably know this but it was T Dan Smith who saved the former Lloyds bank (on Grey Street) by having it rebuilt exactly as it was after being hit by a bomb. Had he not, the belief is that Grey street would have been lost gradually to concrete. Newcastle vandals also built rail road across the site of a medieval castle in the nineteenth century.
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Very beautiful pictures, Thanks for sharing
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