High-rise living in Newcastle
WHEN AND WHY DID IT HAPPEN?
THE catastrophe of London’s Grenfell Tower is surely one of the most shocking news stories of recent times.
As the fall-out from the disaster continues, it’s been pointed out how ten of thousands of people across the UK live in high-rise tower blocks.
But why and when did we start building them?
Here in Newcastle, there are multi-storey blocks in the west and east ends of the city.
The earliest surviving towers went up in the early 1960s.
Todds Nook and Westgate Court were completed in 1964, and Vallum Court a year later.
Each block boasted 120 flats across 20 floors and stood 190ft high.
The high-rise trio appear in the title sequence to the classic 1973 BBC TV sitcom, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.
The image of the towering flats, as the demolition of older housing takes place in the foreground, captures perfectly the change going on around much of urban Tyneside, and Britain, in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The Todds Nook Flats and others like them were a product of the “city in the sky” concept as envisioned by Newcastle’s early 1960s council leader, the controversial T Dan Smith.
During that decade, Newcastle would sometimes be referred to as the “Brasilia of the North” at a time when many old buildings were swept away and often replaced by new structures in a rush towards modernism after the war.
We associate high-rise living as a relatively modern phenomenon but, perhaps surprisingly, that’s not the case.
Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones is Newcastle University’s chair of town planning, and director of Newcastle City Futures urban living partnership.
He says: “The Romans and the Chinese built structures that were multi-storey.
“But it was in the United States in the early 20th century where the first tower blocks and skyscrapers that are familiar to us today were constructed.”
The professor points out it was the new use of steel frames and concrete and, interestingly, the invention of the elevator that saw America make the breakthrough.
“Here in Britain,” he continues, “the idea of high-rises was kicking about in 1920s and 30s London, but it wasn’t until after World War Two that things started to happen.
“Bombed-out cities and towns needed to be rebuilt; ‘high-rise’ became a fashionable architectural concept; and building tower blocks meant people could be rehoused in the same place – quickly and cheaply.
“For the early residents, the experience came as a shock. Now people were ‘living in the sky’ not in streets, next to each other.”
But Prof Tewdwr-Jones adds: “The first impressions were often positive. These new flats, with modern kitchens and bathrooms, were far better appointed than the old terraces many people had left behind.
“But then, from the late 1950s onwards, there was a chase for numbers.
“There was a rush to get these blocks up as quickly as possible, and there were incentives in the form of government subsidies. ■■You can follow Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones on Twitter and Instagram @profmarktj