14 - 50 Commercial Road, Byker Wall

Terraces of houses and four flats (nos.23-25 and nos. 49-51 St Peter's Road). 1978-81 by by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor, Fairclough Buildings Ltd. Red brick to street, pale brick to rear courtyard and private gardens. Commercial Road with pale brick rear alternating every two or three houses between red-brown and brown weatherboarded eaves over first-floor strip windows, and full red-brown weatherboarding. Concrete tiled roofs of Marley Modern tiles, those to Commercial Road stepped, mostly in pairs but no. 42 a single one. Steps on street elevation to flats, of timber with sloping timber roofs; projecting first-floor balconies behind, in red-brown timber. Windows of timber in timber surrounds with aluminium opening lights (mainly sliding); timber doors with glazed panel, many originals surviving, under red metal door hoods. Bird box to no. 53 St Peter's Road. Brick arch with timber portal, shielding stone entrance way with pediment and half columns allegedly from Newcastle's Old Town Hall - one of the last and largest examples of the architectural salvage found throughout the Byker estate, and wall links no. 53 to no. 50 Commercial Road. Bird box to no. 50 Commercial Road, and to every stepped pair down the slope. Brown fences to Commercial Road and St Peter's Road gardens an integral part of the composition. Interiors not inspected but understood not to be of special interest.

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*