110 years of music retailing at Win
WHILE other Newcastle music stores have come and gone, one has remained resolutely in the heart of the city for generations.
It was 1908 when JG Windows opened its doors on to Edwardian Britain.
Newcastle United were heading towards their third league title in five years; the RVI was the city’s recentlyopened main hospital; and steam trains were puffing across the Tyne on the new King Edward VII rail bridge.
This was a banging, clanking, smoky, sooty Tyneside where heavy industry reigned.
In their leisure time, more folk mainly men - were watching football. Many would go to the music hall; every town had at least one. And across the North East there were hundreds of pubs where a boozy singsong would be the highlight of the evening.
Alex Cole is the instrument manager at Window’s music store which has traded in Newcastle for 110 years.
“Back then, a time before television and radio, home entertainment often centred around a piano in the corner and sheet music, and that’s what Windows chiefly sold then - pianos and sheet music,” said Alex.
The most popular songs of 1908 included long-forgotten numbers and artistes such as As Long As The World Rolls On by Alan Turner; Under Any Old Flag At All by Bill Murray; and The Glow Worm by Lucy Isabelle Marsh.
To buy the sheet music for these and other songs, many Tyneside folk would have made a beeline for Window’s in the majestic Central Arcade, known for its glass barrel-vaulted roof and stunning tile work.
Originally built in 1837 as the Central Exchange, the Arcade reopened as a rebuilt elegant shopping area in 1906 after a devastating fire five years earlier.
Today, in a very different world, where countless musical tastes and trends have come and gone with the passing decades, Windows is still going strong.
“We’ve expanded in recent years and we’re still the go-to Newcastle store for musical instruments, CDs, vinyl, printed music and Hi-Fi. We also have a store in the Metrocentre,” says Alex Coles.
But just who was JG Window? Stewart Hindmarsh, the company’s chairman and one of three directors, takes up the story.
“James Gale Windows was born in 1870 in Cowley, Oxfordshire,” says
Windows grow into one of the most well-known brands in the North East.
“In 2006 the company was bought from the Windows family by three current and former employees and long-time associates, and they have since driven the company forward.”
Over the years the store has welcomed many of the North East’s music stars through its doors, from Bryan Ferry, to AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, to Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler.
And for the rest of us - including yours truly - countless thousands of us have flocked there to buy our favourite albums, hang around in the rock section, or maybe even splash out on a musical instrument. Drums anyone?
“There are many reasons why Windows has remained successful,” says Alex Cole.
“We appeal to everyone’s musical tastes; we’re a strong part of the heritage and community of Tyneside life; and we’re in a brilliant location.”
If you haven’t been for a while, next time you step off the Metro at Monument, take the short stroll to the Central Arcade and pay a visit to one of Newcastle’s most famous stores.
Here’s to JG Windows and the next 110 years.