The clear roads and blackened facades of 1924

HISTORIAN’S BOOK SHOWS HOW THE CITYSCAPE HAS CHANGED

THE aerial view of Grey’s Monument in Newcastle, taken in 1924, reveals two striking differences from the view today.

Given that it was 94 years ago, the traffic-free roads appear bare and the buildings, especially the start of Grey Street, are coal-black as a result of the air pollution of the time from countless domestic coal fires and the chimneys of concentrated industry.

The picture from the Aerofilms Collection features in a new book titled Newcastle: Unique Images from the Archives of Historic England.

The book, by Tyneside local historian Paul Perry with Historic England, is from Amberley Publishing.

There are plenty of pictures to choose from – the Historic England archive consists of 12 million photographs, drawings, plans and documents.

There are six million aerial shots in the archive, from 1919 onwards, and a view across the roof of Newcastle Station takes in a blackened Assembly Rooms in Westgate Road and a sooty Grainger Street.

What a difference a scrub-up makes.

Another overhead shot lays out the full, original splendour of Old Eldon Square long before chunks were sacrificed to the shopping centre of the same name.

That picture was taken in 1927 – the last time Newcastle United won the league championship, and another image – taken in the same year and probably from the same aircraft, shows St James’ Park with its three open-terraced sides where crowds witnessed the feat. If they had been told that, nigh on a century later there would be no repeat of that title, they would not have believed it.

In other pictures, trams run through the Bigg Market, with its Victorian Town Hall, sadly demolished in the 1970s.

Also pictured is the lavish interior of another departed landmark, the Empire Theatre in Newgate Street, which opened in 1890, seating 2,000.

It came down in 1963, the same decade of attrition in which the pictured 1831 Royal Arcade was lost to make way for Swan House and its roundabout.

There are images of prominent industrial sites which are no more, such as the coal-fired Stella power station, and the row of cones of Lemington glass works.