Sun shone over Eldon Square in 1968
THEN AND NOW: NEWCASTLE 50 YEARS AGO
THE sun was shining over Newcastle on this day 50 years ago. If you’d turned on your radio, you might have heard the latest pop hits such as Jumping Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones, or Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan.
At cinemas, like Newcastle Odeon or the ‘Haymarket’, newly released films included The Odd Couple and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In the news, US presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed in Los Angeles while, in Dagenham, the landmark Ford sewing machinists’ strike was taking place.
And if you were a Newcastle United fan, you’d be spending the summer eagerly anticipating the club’s first ever European campaign after they had qualified for the Inter City Fairs Cup.
Meanwhile, basking in the sun, was Eldon Square. Today, the name suggests the city’s giant 1970s-built shopping complex. Then, it simply referred to the three-sided Georgian built terrace, and the ever-welcoming area of green space.
If you’d wandered up there on June 13, 1968, you’d have seen shop and office workers enjoying the fine weather on that Thursday afternoon.
Eight years later, when the shopping centre was opened, two sides of the terrace had been demolished.
‘Old’ Eldon Square was built between 1825-31 as Newcastle’s old town centre underwent comprehensive redevelopment.
It was named after the first Earl of Eldon - born in Newcastle as John Scott - who served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain in the early 19th century.
Designed by architect Thomas Oliver, with some input by John Dobson, the terrace was built, largely by the renowned Richard Grainger.
The Georgian project consisted of 25 high-class terraced houses – built in Palladian style – with smooth stone fronts and first-floor cast-iron balconies surrounding a large private railed garden.
This railed-off central area had already been opened up by 1923 when the World War I memorial of St George and the Dragon – made of Portland stone and bronze – was unveiled by wartime field marshal, Earl Hague.
It replaced a decorative freestanding lamppost which had stood there until around 1920.
Fifty years on from our older photograph, the square and monument remain relatively unchanged. The Georgian terraces are long-gone.