Block of 18 council flats, some now privately owned. Designed 1948-9, built 1951-2 by Clifford Wyld, District Surveyor, for Gosforth Urban District Council. Buff brick with concrete dressings; pantiled roofs. 15 flats face Graham Park Road, three face the Great North Road, the 'L'-shape thus given the block protecting the rear gardens from traffic noise. Flats are in three groups of six, set in pairs off three staircases. Three storeys, with semi-basement to wing fronting Great North Road.

Elevation to Great North Road has three windows per floor on principal levels. All windows of steel with opening casements on projecting hinges. Ground floor has five small lights and two groups of three lights to storage rooms and boiler house. Upper floors have projecting concrete frames to square windows with inset metal frames, and side casements. At right, small larder window on each floor. Ridge chimney and right boiler house stack. Right return to Graham Park Road has at left, the projecting gable for front range with window to left of stack and balconies to right of it. Long range, projecting gable of front range with window to left of stack and balconies to right of it. Long range, to right of gable, has three storeys. Flats are in three groups of seven bays, each with double glazed doors at left recessed under a canopy on sloping metal poles. Above the entrance are two stair windows. Two flats on each floor, with tiers of balconies flanking four windows, the central pair larger. Windows are in projecting concrete frames, balconies have patterned steel balustrades. On the balconies doors at each end give access to the kitchen and to the staircase. There is a rubbish chute on each balcony except the ground floor, where there is a rubbish bin at the base of the chute in a cupboard.

On the rear elevation, overlooking The Poplars, similar balconies are reached from the sitting room and the main bedroom. On the left return of the front range there is a colonnaded shelter, designed as a sheltered play area for small children, from which there is access to the storage cupboards for each flat and to the boiler room. Heating is by a district system on a loop, and original radiators survive.

Interiors. Fine open-well staircases, with steel balustrades and tiled floors and dados. Each flat has a recessed glass brick beside the door and a letter box set in the wall beneath it. A long corridor has toilet, bathroom and kitchen on one side, and bedrooms on the other; at the end of the corridor the dining room is next to the kitchen and the sitting room next to the main bedroom. In the kitchen a hatch to the dining room, and in some flats, original storage shelves and cupboards, and tiled shelf over an alcove fitted with a gas pipe perhaps for oven or for refrigerator. A glazed screen between dining and sitting rooms gives good light to each. Skirting boards are curved to give wide flat edge to fitted carpets for ease of cleaning. The standard of planning and of finish throughout is very high.

Low walls enclosing the site have chamfered stone coping, steel or wrought-iron gates are the same height as the walls. A row of fourteen garages facing The Poplars is integral to the scheme, with some renewed doors. Sources
Tyne and Wear Archives Service: Gosforth Urban District Council records:
TWAS UD/GO/1/1-33 and /23 Council Meetings April 1948-July 1955
TWAS UD/GO/5/11, /12 and /13 Building and Town Planning Committees 1948-52
TWAS UD/GO/10 Finance Committee {1}. Nos. 39 to 73 Graham Park Road is a block of council flats built 1951-2 to a design by Clifford Wyld, District Surveyor for Gosforth Urban District Council. The L-shaped three-storey building is built in buff brick with concrete dressings and pantiled roof. The flats are arranged in three groups of six, set in pairs off three staircases. The windows are steel casements, on the upper floors in projecting concrete frames. There are also small larder windows. The balconies, which are accessed from the kitchen and staircase or the sitting room and bedroom, have patterned steel balustrades and a rubbish chute with a metal door. The open-well staircases have steel balustrades and tiled floors and dados. The kitchens have a hatch to the dining room, and in some flats original cupboards and shelves. There is a glazed screen between dining and sitting room. North Pennines Archaeology recorded No. 49 before internal alterations by Your Homes Newcastle. Notable features included a radiator in the stairwell with a metal hood which radiates heat up the staircase, the letter box with glass brick above, tiled floors, wide skirting, original front door with square bolt, a hall closet with original coat hooks, Art Deco style wash basin and a patterned glass window in the bathroom, larder door with original latch, fitted kitchen and inset gas fire.

This building was listed Grade II in 2000 with the following description:
'Estate lodge. 1883. Red brick with terracotta dressing and plain tiled roofs with decorative barge boards. One gable stack and one tall wall stack. Single storey. Moulded plinth and elaborate terracotta sill band. Main facade has to right large canted wooden bay window with very deeply coved eaves decorated with two rows of plaster panels, the lower left bearing the date 1883. Central wooden lean-to porch has turned wooden columns and balusters, now glazed. To left single 4-light casement window topped with painted terracotta pediment with swag. Right return has central wall stack with decorative terracotta panels at its base, to left a single light casement with rounded pediment and to right a 2-light casement with similar broader pediment. Left return has single French window with simple segmental lintel. Small single storey extension to rear.' {1}
South Lodge to Jesmond Towers (HER 5724). Initials CM (Charles Mitchell) on the stonework. The lefthand entrance has scallop decoration. The pillar is upside down - local tradition says that this was deliberate by a disgruntled stonemason in Mitchell's employment {2}.

Cinema. Opened as the News Theatre in 1937 to the designs of George Bell, of Dixon and Bell of Newcastle. Brick and steel frame construction, clad in white glazed tiles. Roof not seen. Concealed behind parade of shops, also by Bell, which incorporates original entrance. Now entered from side, into small entrance foyer, when staircase leads to double-height main auditorium with balcony, cinema cafe, offices and secondary screen.

The cinema is concealed down side elevation, and reached through glazed doors. The small entrance foyer has elaborate fibrous plaster Art Deco mouldings on ceiling, cornices and on pilasters surrounding stairwell. Staircase balustrades in similar style. Similar decoration up to second floor level with the same balustrades continuing to third floor. Triple-shouldered arches over entrances to stairs and stairwell apertures. Rectangular double-level auditorium arranged as stalls and balcony. Stalls in semi-basement entered by stairs from foyer, balcony approached from first floor. Straight balcony front, with acoustic fluted decoration. Balcony extends as `legs' to meet proscenium wall. Proscenium of superimposed mouldings with rounded profiles interrupted at sides by three relief bands decorated with rosettes. Side splays embellished with vertical Art Deco panels of pierced fibrous plaster standing on plinths with bands of scrolling Acanthus containing rosettes, below which are dwarf balconies (these may originally have been designed as giant jardinieres, i.e.. intended for plants) with metal balustrades designed in the form of interlaced circles. Horizontal banding on walls. Square lighting cove in main ceiling; fibrous plaster panels in subsidiary ceilings at sides. Two columns in rear balcony with dish uplighter sconces ultimately derived from the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin, of 1919 by Hans Poelzig. Back wall of balcony inset with sound absorbent panels. Three fibrous plaster panels in rear of balcony soffit.

Cafe on second floor above auditorium with Art Deco pilasters and entrance corridor with sumptuous cornice and ceiling decoration. Second auditorium created in roof space above cafe of no decorative interest.

ANALYSIS: The news cinema was a type of cinema particularly popular in the late 1930s, where newsreels, topical interest films and cartoons were shown. They formed an invaluable function in disseminating information in the days before television, and these small halls became a feature of major city centres and principal railway stations. Few survive in any form. This is the finest surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in Britain, incorporating a rare example of a fine cinema cafe. Newreel cinema. McCombie - late for a news theatre, but supposedly the last working newsreel cinema in Britain, later a specialist cinema. Restoration and polycarbonate-clad rooftop extension 2006-8 by Fletcher Priest, consultant conservation architect Cyril Winskell. Fine Art Deco/Persian interior; later mural by Newcastle architect Peter Yates.

Church, c.1865 with later additions. Architect unknown but possibly by William Butterfield or one of his pupils. Built in Early English gothic style of brick, faced in coursed ashlar buff sandstone with slate roofs. Truncated west tower, south porch, nave with aisles and clerestorey, north and south chapels, square-ended sanctuary. Open roof with king-post collar trusses. Plain pews and re-sited organ possibly original. Stained glass dating from between 1872 and 1875 by Morris and Co. The piece de resistance is the three light east window, principally designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, the central light depicts a half-profile crucifixion, with Christ ministered by nine red-winged angels. Interior - orange brick horizontally banded with black brick and buff ashlar giving a striking effect. The walls of the sanctuary have more elaborate bands of polychrome brick chevron and checked decoration and an arcade in black bricks. The church was built at the expense of a private individual (Thomas Eustace Smith, Liberal MP for Tynemouth 1868-1885 and owner of Gosforth House), remaining unconsecrated while serving part of an Anglican parish, and then being bought for the Roman Catholic church. Originally named St. Mary's. The church was re-roofed in 1913 and 1934. Major internal re-ordering of chancel and west end in 1986-7.

Architecturally undistinguished workers dwellings near to Sunniside Farm (HER 9099).

Goldsmith's shop, warehouse and office. c1910, clock added c1932, shopfront remodelled c1960.
Ashlar with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. Four storey plus attics. Baroque Revival style. Corner site.
Ground floor has shopfront c1960 with to left another shopfront c1980 and beyond original entrance doorway to offices above with double panel doors in fluted marble surround. First floor has blocked window on canted corner with projecting gilded square clock topped with a gilded female figure added c1932. Above single cross casement with attenuated keystone, another window above, both in round headed ashlar surround. Attic has small pair of windows. Hexagonal corner cupola has open facades with boldly rusticated Doric columns, each corner has square corbelled pilaster rising to square Ionic column. Cupola topped with copper dome.
North front has 3 window centre flanked by single windows. Centre has 3 casements in rusticated surrounds with attenuated keystones rising to cill band above. Both floors of upper windows recessed between Ionic half-columns, supporting ornate entablature. 3 small cross casements the lower ones with segment arched heads and elongated keystones. Attic has single central window with moulded ashlar surround topped with segmental hood. Single window end bay has first floor window with moulded ashlar surround, upper windows incorporated in single moulded ashlar surround with carved panel between. Attic has pair of windows with bold mullion between rising into curved ashlar hood supported on brackets.
South-east front has similar two window facade.

This building was listed Grade II in 2000 with the following description:
'Medical School, now Department for Agriculture and the Centre for Lifelong Learning. 1936-39 with internal alterations 1948, and attic storey added 1955-57. Designed by P Clive Newcombe and largely paid for by Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland. Steel-framed with flat concrete roofs, clad in red brick with ashlar dressings. 3 storey and 4 storey on basement. Three tall blocks linked by lower buildings with staircases and lecture theatres. West front to Queen Victoria Road has central 9 window 4 storey block with slightly projecting 3 window centre with short Doric pilasters in antis, and above giant Corinthian pilasters in antis, topped with ashlar parapet, and either side 3 windows in vertical strips with ashlar panels between. Attic floor added. Either end slightly lower 7 window blocks with projecting 3 window centres with ashlar panels between, to the sides 2 windows in similar vertical strips. Set back to right main entrance has projecting ashlar porch with single fluted Doric columns in antis and moulded ashlar door surround with main revolving door and overlight with glazing bars. St Thomas Street front 2 storey plus attic arranged 4.4.5.4.4. Central section has 3 windows in ashlar panel with 3 attic windows above, set back either side are 4 window sections set in vertical ashlar panels, with similar 4 window sections set back at either side. East King's Road facade similar to west facade but with plainer centre. INTERIOR entrance hall and Howden Room both have good quality imitation seventeenth century panelling and decorative plaster ceilings.' {1}.
The building is of interest because it combines classical elements from antiquity (Corinthian columns) with the clean bold designs of the art deco, influenced by the Ancient Egyptian art and design {2}. Medical School moved in summer 1984 to a new building between RVI and the Dental Hospital.

Gateway

This building was listed Grade II in 1987 with the following description:
'Former Department of Agriculture, now School of Architecture GV II University department. 1913 by W.H. Knowles F.S.A. (panel at right of entrance and foundation stone). Brown brick with ashlar dressings; roof of plain tiles. Symmetrical. Tudor style. 2 storeys and attics; 1:3:1 bays, the outer wide bays under gables. 4 steps up to central open porch with moulded Tudor arch under corbelled oriel; stone mullioned and transomed windows in irregular-block surrounds; buttressed end bays have central buttress to corbelled first-floor oriel; 7-light windows in gable peaks. 3 gabled dormers; roll-moulded continuous parapet. 2 tall stacks with ashlar plinth and cornice, with 3 chimneys each. Panel in porch: half of cost of building borne by Clement Stephenson, half by the Ministry of Agriculture.' {1}.
Before the college could occupy the building, it was requestioned by the Government, along with other college buildings, for use as the first Northern General Hospital on the outbreak of World War One. In 1914 there were 520 beds. By 4th August 1917 there were 1286. In 1917 264 Home Troops, Officers were admitted, 5128 other ranks, 233 Overseas Troops, Officers and 5287 other ranks. In the college grounds the following were erected: a ward for 110 beds, a receiving room, pack store and fumigator, 4 pavilions and 12 revolving shelters. The ward was presented to the hospital by M. Frank Priestman and opened in September 1917.

This wall was listed Grade II in 1999 with the following description:
'Alternatively known as: Gates and Railings at Royal Victoria Infirmary, RICHARDSON ROAD Lodge, gates and railings. 1900-05 with minor C20 alterations. Red brick with ashlar dressings slate roofs and iron railings and gates. Designed by W L Newcombe and Percy Adams. South lodge has square cross plan, single storey with ashlar plinth and moulded ashlar eaves band cornice and parapet. Hipped slate roof with central brick and ashlar stack. East and west fronts have central pilaster porticoes with 3 sash windows. Main north front has full 4 columned portico. Iron pedestrian gate links lodge to square gate pier. Linked to this lodge is iron gate and brick gate pier. Attached railings stretch along Queen Victoria Street with a further set of gates. The railings continue along Richardson Road and also along the passage to the north of the hospital site. These railings are plain spearhead iron railings set on low brick walling with chamfered ashlar coping, the regularly spaced piers are made up of 4 thick iron capped with ornate domed laterns.'