1 - 20 Merle Gardens, Byker Wall

Includes 1-20 Merle Gardens, with car porch to Bolam Way and attached timber fences. Square formed of four terraces and some flats. 1976-8 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor, Shepherd Construction. Buff metric modular brick on timber frame, with red brick to corner blocks and to Bolam Way. Dark blue and red weatherboarding to inner area overlooking square. Outer faces with dark blue weatherboarded eaves. Monopitch metal roofs supported on plywood box beam purlins. Two storeys, mainly houses but with flats overlooking Raby Street. Projecting brick porches under sloping metal roofs to nos. 1-3. Brick carriageway opening between nos. 4 and 5. No. 6 with projecting timber and brick porch, and projecting timber oriel to upper flat. Nos 8 and 9 have bird boxes; nos. 9 and 10 are single storey. Timber windows in timber surrounding with aluminium opening lights, mainly sliding; timber doors with glazed panel, many renewed in hardwood. Inner courtyard has raised brick wall, fences and pergolas, particularly to rear of nos. 1-4.

Nos. 14-20 have red brick to elevations overlooking Bolam Way, and form a continuation of Cushat Close (q.v.), with red and blue eaves weatherboarding and large projecting timber car porch. Carriageway linked by timber-clad heating pipes between nos. 13 and 14.

The Byker area, first extensively developed in the 1890s, was earmarked for redevelopment from the late 1950s, with a new motorway to the north. In March 1967 the Housing Architect's Department proposed the building of a barrier block to shelter the area, and this idea was supported by Ralph Erskine, who was invited to develop the area for Newcastle Corporation in 1969. His Plan of Intent, published in 1970, promised a complete redevelopment programme of housing and landscaping with cost yardsticks, while maintaining the traditions and character of the neighbourhood, and to rehouse the residents without breaking family and social ties. His achievement in rehousing 40% of the original residents on the original site was exceptional, as were his methods of keeping the community informed of development and seeking their support and suggestions for the low-rise housing. In achieving these goals Erskine sought to exploit the south-facing sloping site, to develop a system of pedestrian routes through the estate and to provide a `specific "local" individuality to each group of houses.' The estate was redeveloped in a rolling programme of no more than 250 units at a time, to try to maintain the community's infrastructure. The idea was a sheltering perimeter block, which protects the estate from traffic noise and creates a micro climate, with low-rise housing in its lee. The modular metric facing brick of 290mm x 90mm x 65mm was developed by Crossley and Sons in County Durham, in collaboration with the City of Newcastle. When mortared, it forms a 12" by 4" by 3" unit. The inventiveness of the decoration, developed following the relatively muted `pilot scheme' at Janet Square, marks Byker out from other post-war housing for bringing the humane concepts of `romantic pragmatism' with its neo-vernacular details and materials to public housing in a unique way. It is probably also the greatest achievement of this important and idiosyncratic international architect. `If there is something marvellously lighthearted about the design, this I would say is the topographical keynote of the new Byker' (Architectural Design, June 1975, p.333).

Sources
Tyne and Wear Archives
Architectural Review, December 1974, pp.346-62
Mats Egelius, Ralph Erskine, Architect, Stockholm 1990, pp.148-60 LISTED GRADE 2*