18 - 22 Spires Lane, Byker Wall

'L'-shaped terrace of houses and flats. 1974-6 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor Shepherd Construction Limited. Pale brick and brown weatherboarding, on timber frame with yellow and red eaves. Blue metal roofs with plywood box beams purlins. Two storeys with weatherboarded attic storey to corner over nos. 21 Headlam Street and nos. 21-22 Spires Lane, with projecting single-storey community room at corner of Headlam Street and Spires Lane. Carriage arch under nos. 21-22 Spires Lane. Nos. 7-17 Headlam Street and nos. 21-22 Spires Lane are flats. Distinctive yellow weatherboarded eaves to Headlam Street, with red vertical struts between first-floor windows. Brown weatherboarding to nos. 4, 5 and 6 Grace Street, which have plastic door hoods and blue doors and windows to rear. 7-19 have brown weatherboarded projecting porches with metal roofs. Community room with green weatherboarding and steep-pitched roof with broad timber entrance porch to rear; Nos. 18-20 Spires Lane with green weatherboarded fronts to projecting porches under blue metal roofs. Brown timber windows except where noted above, in timber subframes and with aluminium opening lights; red and blue doors with glazed panel, some renewed in hardwood. Interiors not inspected but understood not to be of special interest. Attached brick garages to the rear of nos. 18-21 Spires Lane. Short spur fences between the houses and pairs of flats. This is a complex and pivotal group at the corner of the Grace Lee development.

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, LISTED GRADE 2*