Photographs Of Newcastle: Byker 2021 to 2023

7th April 2023

Walker Road, The Ropes.

Walker Road, Hoults Yard Entrance.

Looks like the wall is about to collapse.

15th March 2023

Walker Road, The Ropes.

8th March 2023

Albion Row, Scrap Metals.

Chirton Wynd.

23rd February 2023

St. Michaels Road, The Grove (no's. 1 to 4).

Previously an industrial site, The Grove is being converted to a live music venue.

12th February 2023

Walker Road, The Ropes.

11th February 2023

Brinkburn Centre.

The centre originally opened in the early 1900's as Byker Library.
Around 2000 the library moved to a new site near Shields Road and the building has had many uses since.

St. Michaels Road, Polestar Studios.

19th January 2023

Walker Road.

Contruction of a few houses called The Ropes after the nearby St. Lawrence Rope Works, the last buildings of the rope works were demolished in the 1990's.

18th January 2023

Walker Road.

Previously another entrance to the allotments before redevelopment a few years back.

27th November 2022

Spires Lane, Church of St. Lawrence.

RC St Lawrence Church and attached church hall. Church of c.1895, architect not known. St Lawrence's RC Church of roughly dressed sandstone, slate roof.
Four and a half bays, with broad entrance front facing compass east having corner spirelet. Lancet windows and arcade under broad hoods. Heavily dentiled eaves cornice to side. Entrance between inset half columns and roll mouldings under pointed hood, with cross, as there is to gable end. Rear vestry with little buttresses.
The retention of the old public buildings, including churches, was a key feature of Erskine's concept for Byker, but St Lawrence's, being built into the wall, demonstrates this concept exceptionally and forms a strong group and visual contrast. Community rooms to side entered from Byker Crescent, with red timber pergola denoting entrance and giving striking accent to church, and stepped blue metal roofs incorporating dormers within red timber eaves.
Listed Grade 2. Source: Sitelines.

Byker Masonic Hall, Corbridge Street.

15th August 2022

Parkside Garage, Welbeck Road.

Newcastle City Council recently approved plans to convert the garage to flats.

Welbeck Road, No. 31.

23rd July 2022

The Byker Viaduct.

From 16th July to 29th July no Metros are running in either direction between St James and Tynemouth. This is to allow for the complete removal and replacement of Tanner Bank bridge in North Shields, vegetation and overhead power line work on the rest of the line.

10th July 2022

Wilfred Street, no. 8, The Joseph Cowen Health Centre.

Formerly a public house called Baxters which closed in the 1990's.

Wilfred Street, no. 10.

Wilfred Street.

24th June 2022

Byker Masonic Hall, Corbridge Street.

4th May 2022

Byker Masonic Hall, Corbridge Street.

23rd March 2022

St. Michael's Vicarage.

One of the old buildings which was retained in the Byker Redevelopment. Now Nos. 1-6 Old Vicarage Apartments. Source: Sitelines.

Shipley Street, Swimming Baths.

Public swimming baths and wash house 1907 (Lynn Pearson says 1886). Incorporated into the perimeter block of the Byker Wall Estate in the early 1970s. Red brick with ashlar dressings and slate pitched roofs with large glass skylights. Mostly two storeys with one single storey bay.
The main south elevation is in three distinct sections. The 3 bays at the east end are formed by 3 cross gables with a row of cross windows at first floor and a row of blocked openings to the ground floor. Linked by a narrow single storey bay to the central section which contains segmental arched entrances for men and women with large windows to each side.
The second bay projects at first floor level and has a cross window in a half dormer and mullioned windows to either side. The west side of the building is blind with 7 large recessed panels between brick pilasters ending in a tower. The rear north elevation is mostly plain with mullioned and cross windows, 7 large recessed panels and a tall tapering chimney. The east gable has a row of mullioned windows and a Byker stair attached, apparently to house the reception of the official opening of Byker by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1974.
Now used for climbing. Only one of three pre-1914 swimming baths in Tyne and Wear (the others being Gibson Street and Wallsend).
Grade 2 Listed. Source: Sitelines.

17th January 2022

The Sun Ray Clinic, Brinkburn Street.

The Sun Ray Clinic was established in the 1930s by Sir James Spence to provide Sun Ray treatment for youngsters with rickets and skin conditions. The clinic operated for over 55 years but closed in the 1980s.

St Michael's Road.

I don't know what this building was but it is now used for manufacturing. Old maps I have at hand label the building as a hall and nothing more.

Albion Row, Stone Seahorse.

One of many such items dotted around the Byker estate believed to reclaimed from the old Town Hall in Mosley Street when it was demolished in 1973.

Tom Collins House.

11th November 2021

St. Lawrence Road.

The day after a fire at W.M.A. Motors on St. Lawrence Road.

13th October 2021

St Silas Church, Clifford Street.

Parish church. 1886 by R.J. Johnson; alterations 1899. Snecked sandstone with ashlar plinth, quoins and dressings. Tiled roof with stone coping. Arched double door in moulded surround in north aisle westernmost bay. Similar door and 2-light window in east end of aisle. Similar west doors inserted in 1899, flank large round-headed window with tracery. Battlemented octagonal belfry turret at north-west has canted bapistry adjoining.
Interior - painted plaster above boarded dado, arch-braced collar truss roof. 5-bay arcade of tall octagonal piers. Gothic-style reredos of Caen stone was 1899 gift from vicar. Painted panelled coved canopy above. Octagonal stone font, wooden rail and kneeler. Glass in east and bapistry windows by Atkinson Bros. of Newcastle.
Stone relief panel in south wall commemorating Elizabeth Harbottle, founder of the Harbottle Charity, has angels flanking inscription of early 20th century.
Grade 2 Listed. Source: Sitelines.

22nd September 2021

Newcastle Council depot, Allendale Road.

Previously the headquarters of the old Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company.

The Masonic Hall and Byker Pool, Corbridge Street.

The S.A. Performing Arts centre, Corbridge Street.

The Salvation Army, Brinkburn Street.

2nd August 2021

A mural on the rear of Grace Street.

2nd July 2021

Wall outside Full Circle Brew, Walker Road.

A number of attempts over the years to tie the wall seem to be failing.

15th June 2021

Stone crest, The Tyne Bank Brewery, Walker Road.

A "By Royal Appointment" stone crest on what has recently become The Tyne Bank Brewery next door to St Peter's Social Club. Originally a factory owned by biscuit maker W&R Jacob & Co. Ltd.

Walker Road.

A sea of dumped rubbish on Walker Road which has been there since the first covid 19 lockdown in March 2020.

Allotments entrance, Walker Road.

Byker Bridge.

Byker Bridge and the Metro Viaduct.

Rear of Headlam Street.

Felton Walk.

St Lawrence's Catholic Church.

1st May 2021

The Sun Ray Clinic, Brinkburn Street.

6th April 2021

The old Riverside Branch Line.

The North Eastern Railway, Newcastle and Tynemouth, Riverside Branch line was originally opened in May 1879 to serve the riverside industries. Services were timed to coincide with shifts in the shipyards.
Stations were built at Byker (closed 1954), St Peter’s, St Anthony’s, Walker, Carville, Point Pleasant and Willington Quay. Passenger traffic was light and ceased in 1973. The line is now closed and converted into a walkway.
The line connected the River Tyne and Walker to the main railway network. The southern half of the line was in a cutting which led to a tunnel beneath Bevans Department Store on Shields Road. It emerged on the south side of the road and continued down the slope to the Quayside at St. Lawrence. The cutting is now in-filled and the tunnel appears to be blocked. Sitelines.