Grey Street, Newcastle (16 Feb 2010)

Though Shambles in York has understandably garnered much of the attention for being named “Britain’s most picturesque street” in the Google Street View Awards, it’s a pleasure to see Newcastle’s Grey Street coming up in third place – if only for no other reason than giving me an excuse to use some nice nighttime shots that I took three weeks ago. 

Grey Street, Newcastle (16 Feb 2010)

From a retail point of view, Grey Street is something of an also-ran within Newcastle city centre – other than at the Grey’s Monument end, there are relatively few shops along the length of the street, with its mostly Tyneside Classical buildings occupied instead by a succession of banks, restaurants, bars, offices and estate agents. It wasn’t always like that – older readers will still remember when Binns department store (formerly Coxon’s) occupied what is now Earl Grey House (the building on the corner of Grey Street and Market Street that currently houses Costa Coffee), prior to moving into the adjacent former Bainbridge site in 1977.

Grey Street is, however, an undoubtedly beautiful and dramatic piece of townscape, already recognised by Radio 4 listeners, back in 2002, as “Britain’s best street”, and before that by Betjeman for its “descending subtle curve”.  

Grey Street, Newcastle (8 Mar 2010)

Perhaps the most prominent retail property on Grey Street today is that occupied since 2008 by Swedish fashion retailer H&M, supplementing the existing, 35,000 sq ft H&M branch that opened up in part of the former Littlewoods premises in Northumberland Street in 1999 – at the time, the largest H&M store in the UK.

H&M, Grey Street (8 March 2010)

The attractive, Grade II-listed H&M building – designed by William Henry Knowles and Thomas Ridley Milburn – dates from 1904, when the site was redeveloped for Mawson, Swan and Morgan, the “booksellers, stationers, printers and picture frame makers” founded in 1878. 

In 1986, following Mawson, Swan and Morgan’s closure, the premises were taken over by Waterstone’s, who remained there until 2007, closing their store as part of HMV Group’s revitalisation programme. It was something of a surprise that Waterstone’s chose not to retain its own original Newcastle store, but instead the nearby former Dillons store at Emerson Chambers, long ago rebranded following Waterstone’s merger with Dillons in 1999. More curious though is that Waterstone’s ran two stores within barely 100m of each other for quite as long as it did. 

One interesting fact, revealed by the Design, Access and Heritage Statement prepared at the time of H&M’s acquisition of the property’s lease, is the much later (1980s) origin of the ground to first floor staircase compared to the original 1904 staircase linking the ground floor and basement. This reflects the fact that the first floor was originally used as office rather than retail space (the clue being in its plainer mouldings and simpler detail compared to the building’s lower floors), accessed by a staircase elsewhere in the building. However, such is the sensitivity of the 1980s intervention, it’s difficult for an untrained eye to spot the join between the grand staircase’s two flights, despite them being constructed eighty years apart. 

'H&M' logo within window shields... (8 Mar 2010)

If anything, H&M’s takeover of the property allows more of the interior’s original features to be appreciated than was the case when the building was filled with bookcases. Equally, on the exterior, it’s pleasing that H&M has continued the tradition of the building’s occupant displaying its initials in the shields above the display windows of the beautiful Edwardian shopfront; just as Waterstone’s replaced ‘MSM’ with its own ‘W’, so H&M has – for the most part – inserted its familar red ‘H&M’ logo. 

...but not in this one (8 Mar 2010)

I’m always puzzled, however, as to why the shields at either end of the frontage have not had anything put inside them – I know that there are H&M logos on the fascia above instead, but the empty shields always niggle me as a detail that makes the design feel unfinished.

Signage as originally proposed (courtesy of John Cunnington Architects)

Perhaps it’s due to the original plans, above, envisaging internally illuminated hanging signs in those locations – presumably disallowed by the planners – which would have removed the need for either fascia- or shield-based logos on those particular parts of the facade?

Still, it would be nice to finish the job, ensuring that this high quality retail refurbishment can make an even more positive design contribution to the UK’s third most picturesque street.

1950s scene showing Maurice Gerald in Newcastle's Bigg Market

Given my interest in both retail history and local history more generally, it’s always a pleasure when people drop me a line to share their memories – especially when it concerns something that up until then I know very little about.  

I was intrigued therefore to receive an email from Norman Gerald – prompted by my previous post about George Rye & Sons’ shoe shop in Newcastle’s Bigg Market – telling me about his father’s business that used to be situated almost directly opposite:  

I’ve been looking at the various sites covering the history of the Bigg Market. My father had a wholesale draper’s business at No. 6 from, I think, the 30s until the 50s. The business was called Maurice Gerald, and he had his name over the door in very large letters.  

Do you know of any archives showing that part of the Bigg Market in that period? The adjacent alleyway originally led to a garage, later a gown showroom. There was also a small clothing factory.  

Incidentally, I believe that 6 Bigg Market had been a restaurant before my father changed its use so it has now gone full circle.  

I’d appreciate any help that you can give me.  

Never having heard of Maurice Gerald, my first step was to Google the name – unusually, however, searching for “Maurice Gerald” in combination with either “Bigg Market” or even just “Newcastle” brought up nothing. It really does seem to be a business that history (or at least the Internet) forgot.

It was rather easier to work out what occupies 6 Bigg Market today. As Norman rightly pointed out, it’s now a restaurant – presently the well regarded Little Saigon on the ground floor (and before that Simply Greek and Miami Blues), with the famous Rupali curry house upstairs. 

Little Saigon at 6 Bigg Market, Newcastle (5 Feb 2010)

Having identified the building, I was able to turn to David Lovie’s great little 2001 book, The Buildings of Grainger Town. Though it’s a few years out of date now, the book is still an excellent guide to more than 200 specific properties within the Grainger Town area. 6 Bigg Market, it tells us, is Grade II listed, and would have been built as a house in the mid to late 1700s, at about the same time as the Cafe Neon building next door at No. 8.

In recent years I’ve built up quite a good collection of local history books, photographs and postcards, particularly relating to the area around the former Bainbridge’s site (with frontages to Market Street, Grainger Street and Bigg Market). Though the Bigg Market does often feature in old photographs, there aren’t very many shots looking up towards Newgate Street from the bottom; more often, the views are like the one below, looking down Bigg Market from Newgate Street towards the grand (and much missed) old Town Hall.

1930s postcard of the Bigg Market; No. 6 is barely visible, towards the bottom on the left

I was really pleased therefore to find a photo on my computer of the Bigg Market in the 1950s, with the Maurice Gerald fascia clearly visible – you can see the photograph in question at the top of the page. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if – just like the George Rye example before – the Maurice Gerald fascia is still there, merely covered up under subsequent layers of signage. It’s difficult, unfortunately, to make out much else about No. 6 from the poor quality of the scan, and because of all the market stalls obscuring the shopfront, but the building is easily recognisable to anyone familiar with how it looks today.

Needless to say, Norman and I would be fascinated if anyone can share anything else that they know about Maurice Gerald – whether it’s more photographs, or just interesting memories. Feel free to post a comment below, or send me a message via the contact form.

Looking forward to your contributions!

Fascia of former George Rye store, Newcastle

Walking through Newcastle’s Bigg Market last Sunday, I was interested to see that part of the William Hill bookmaker’s fascia appeared to have dropped off, exposing some much earlier signage underneath (above).

I was also curious to note how the height of the fascia had evidently been increased from what it was previously, with the top portion of the adjacent doorway concealed as a result.

The uncovered ‘Geor’ is, of course, a remnant of the George Rye shoe shop that opened on the site in 1879, and that lasted there for 128 years before finally closing at the end of 2007. Though the George Rye wholesale business continues to operate successfully from its base in Cramlington, the retail operation was seemingly the victim of the Bigg Market just not being a major retail destination any more.

In contrast, in George Rye’s early years the Bigg Market would have been a major retail thoroughfare. In 1885, the Bainbridge department store (the forerunner of today’s John Lewis Newcastle) acquired the Coach and Horses Inn in the Bigg Market; the inn was promptly demolished, with a new three-storey building for Bainbridge’s House Furniture Department constructed in its place.  This opened up a direct route through the store from Market Street to the Bigg Market, creating a short cut that was affectionately known, for many years, as ‘Bainbridge Street’.

George Rye store just prior to closure. Photograph courtesy of Citikey.com

Interestingly, the exposed fascia is not the one that George Rye sported immediately prior to its closure (above); rather, it would seem to be an earlier version that George Rye had already covered up itself. That’s one of the fascinating things about new shopfronts – generally speaking, it’s easier simply to cover up what’s already there, rather than to rip it out. Most of the time, nobody on the street is any the wiser; it’s only when something is unexpectedly exposed that we get a tantalising reminder of what was there before.

The photograph of the George Rye store prior to closure is courtesy of Citikey.com, the free local directory.