Conyers Road, 1 - 43 Long Headlam, Byker Wall

Nos. 1-43 Long Headlam, 1-81 Felton Walk, RC St. Lawrence Church, church hall, 1-28 Byker Crescent, 1-8 Headlam House (including shop), 1-12 Felton House. Perimeter block of maisonettes, with two link blocks and attached church and church hall. 1972-5 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor, Stanley Miller Ltd. Church of c.1895, architect not known. In situ concrete cross wall construction, with concrete strip foundations and ground beams, clad in strong brown, red, orange and buff patterned metric modular brick patterning to road elevations, red and buff brick to inner face, with white eternit panels to upper floors and elaborate timber detailing at all levels. Concrete block construction clad in pale metric modular brick for link blocks (Headlam House and Felton House). Pre-cast cantilever brackets cast into cross walls. Pale blue sheet metal roofs, with projecting lift and stair towers rising to metal-clad points and forming important townscape features. Five-eight storeys, with carriageway openings on to main road (Conyers Road), and one-and two-storey infill linking Felton Walk, St Lawrence's church and Byker Crescent. Two-storey family maisonettes at ground-floor level, set within walled gardens on inner face, with smaller maisonettes above accessed from balconies on every third level. These balconies are semi-independent structures to reduce noise, with a seat or planting box covering the gap between the balcony and the building. Living rooms and bedrooms are set above or below the entrance level, which has kitchen-diners with entrance doors set in pairs. Balconies to bedrooms double as fire escape routes. All windows of timber in timber sub-frames, with aluminium opening lights, mainly sliding. Double-glazed units to the tiny north side windows (kitchens, stairs and bathrooms only), with yellow and red projecting ventilators a prominent feature.

Long Headlam has brown balconies and built-in seats, with red enclosed projecting balconies at ends where the access galleries meet the lifts and stairs. Felton Walk of five storeys, with brown balconies and access galleries. The maisonettes on the ground floor have blue metal door hoods, green fences and built-in seats. Retaining wall abuts St Lawrence's Church, with community rooms in infill space. The exterior face with particularly large-scale and bold patterns. Blue fences to ground floor and pergolas on this face.

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. Interior not inspected. 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. The interiors of the community rooms (inspected) are not of special interest.

Byker Crescent is of five storeys and forms a prominent semi-circle at the north-east corner of the estate. Brown balconies and access galleries with red-brown enclosures at ends of access galleries by lifts and stairs. Red timber part infill to top of carriage entrance in centre of crescent.

Headlam House (link block) has corner shop on ground floor and eighteen flats or maisonettes. Pale modular metric brick with brown timber balconies on concrete block cross-wall construction with precast cantilevers for balconies, blue metal roofs. Three-four storeys. Brown balconies, including south-facing balconies under eaves where block drops in height. Brown access gallery at second floor links to Long Headlam, and brown too are the metal door hoods to flats.

Felton House (link block) of three and four storeys. The top flat is reached up concrete external stairs under plastic sheet shelter, and has south-facing windows over the roofs. Green balconies, and brown and green timber linking walkway at second-storey links with Felton Walk. Red doors, and brown end balcony facing south. Brown fences to ground-floor units.

The interiors of the maisonettes simple, some with built-in counters separating kitchen and dining areas.

The Byker area first extensively developed in the 1890s was earmarked for redevelopment from the late 1950s. In March 1967 the Housing Architect's Department proposed the building of a barrier block to shelter the area from a proposed inner motorway to be built along the line of the present relief road and the metro, and this was revised by May 1968 after a Conservative majority had come to power. In 1969 Ralph Erskine was recommended by the Housing Design and Programme Working Group to undertake responsibility for the Byker Redevelopment, initially to reappraise the proposals made by the Housing Architect's Department the previous year. He endorsed the building of a barrier block, and based his design on that for his uncompleted mining town of Svappavaara, Sweden (1963), where a barrier block was conceived as way of creating a microclimate in its south-facing lee. Something of the same effect is achieved here, and the south-facing balconies and flats also make the most of the remarkable views. `Lack of windows on the outer side, and the forest of red and yellow ventilators, make it look very strong, yet the decorative style appears casual ... 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). The modular metric 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 design of the wall reflected Newcastle's policy by the late 1960s of not placing family units above the ground floor, while the small upper maisonettes reflected the large need for one-bedroomed accommodation to serve the high proportion of elderly people then forming the Byker community. This was the second phase of the wall to be built, and abuts Shipley Rise (q.v.) and Bamburgh Terrace (q.v.)

Sources
Progressive Architecture, vol.60, no.8, August 1979, pp.68-73
Architectural Design, June 1975, p.333-8
Northern Architect, no. 3, January 1975, pp.30-3
Ralph Erskine's Arkitecktkontor, Summary of Architectural and Planning Aspects of the Byker Development, n.d. c.1976
Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, no. 187, October/November 1976, pp.51-5
Architectural Review, December 1974, pp.346-62
Mats Egelius, Ralph Erskine, Architect, Stockholm 1990, pp.148-60 LISTED GRADE 2*