Byker

Building the Wall

By the 1960s, Byker's dense Victorian terraces, home to generations of shipyard and factory workers, had been condemned as unfit to live in. Rather than simply scatter residents across the city, Newcastle Council took the unusual step of appointing Swedish-British architect Ralph Erskine in 1970 and asking him to design their replacement in close consultation with the people who would actually live there. Erskine rented a former undertaker's on Brinkburn Street as his site office and, working with residents street by street, produced the Byker Wall: a single, mile-and-a-half curve of 620 maisonettes, built between 1969 and 1982, sheltering a low-rise estate behind it from a planned motorway that, in the end, was never built.

A pioneering, if divisive, landmark

Salvaged fragments of the old neighbourhood — carved stonework, even pieces of Newcastle's own Town Hall — were built into the new estate's walls and courtyards, and existing pubs, churches and a swimming bath were kept standing amid the new construction. The result has been praised internationally as a landmark of humane, participatory social housing and recognised by UNESCO among the 20th century's most significant buildings; it was Grade II* listed in 2007, and a multi-million-pound restoration has since returned the Wall to its original colour scheme.

Byker Grove and beyond

Byker's other claim to fame needs no introduction to anyone who grew up watching British children's television: Byker Grove, the BBC youth-club drama filmed nearby and set in the area, ran for eighteen series from 1989 to 2006 and launched the entertainment careers of its two best-known cast members — see the Newcastle page for the full story (and the closest thing this site offers to an apology).