St Cuthberts Village- Tyneside Brutalism
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- This video covers the history of windmill hills and st cuthberts village. This was a modernist housing scheme which replaced victorian terrace housing. Before later being demolished following the deterioration of the flats. This video looks at the permission homes replacement as well.
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Late 70s early 80s.i worked as a removal man. I remember Women crying with Joy when we were moving them out of St Cuthberts Village. Just another monstrosity inflicted on Gateshead folk in the late 1960s, like the Flyover and Multi story car park.
Great video, I lived just off Coatsworth Rd right next to St. Cuthberts Village when I was a kid back in the late 80’s early 90’s. I remember it being a right dump and wouldn’t go anywhere near the place, seemed quite dangerous too.
I lived on Rectory Rd and wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the place. What a dump
I love that Sunbeam.
Hey Honey. I was raised there. Our group is on Facebook for former residents. That’s a great place to go for research.
It might be seen as okay to demolish all the Brutalist Architecture in Gateshead but for us who lived there and was raised there, of the 80s kids n teens, it’s wiped out all our childhood and more or less it’s just obliterated all that was. All that 60s/70s vibe that seems horrible to modern people, was our lives.
Yes, the dead ends with railings , where it’s just land, was my part where I lived. The part nearest the railway , city and river. The lower village.
Yes, there were absolutely problems. But all that’s because of how the council and social services handle people.
The homes that are now there - new builds -are absolutely nothing like what was there. Not in any way, shape or form.
St Cuthbert’s Village was an urban council estate for people who didn’t have much materially and many people there were absolutely lovely.
I look back and miss the good ones I knew. The older Characters that can never ever be replaced by the way things are now in society. It’s scary and sickening the way things have become.
Good luck in your research
Thanks for your response Laura, really interesting to hear the perspectives of someone who lived there. I don’t believe the complete demolition of the place was necessary and it’s demise was definitely due to council and social services issues.
Exactly Laura. And what is seen as 'awful' now, may be sought after in the future. Modernism and Art Deco were derided by the critics and historians of the time. Once it's gone, it's gone forever.
As a former resident I think this is spot on.
Have to say things are no more "scary and sickening" now than they were then. One of the lads I went to school with was found dead by Askew Road back then. He was only about 20 at the time. Drug overdose. Let's not whitewash the past.
I've never lived in a tower block but I am interested in pictures and videos about them. Many of my relations lived in blocks in London and I remember going to visit my Nan often in her second floor flat. I feel really sorry for people like yourself who had homes in these building and loved them. It must really hurt to see people slating these places you lived in the whole time. I can't imagine how that must feel. Also, I couldn't imagine how it must feel now that your old homes have gone. They might not be everybody's cup of tea but lots and lots of people have very special memories of them.
The research and presentation of these videos is just brilliant.
Thanks Martin!
Just a couple of pronunciations off - the u in Cuthbert is like the u in custard, rather than an oo sound. 'Lough' as in Beacon Lough is pronounced 'loff'. It's a characteristic of Geordie English to pronounce gh in proper nouns as an 'f' sound. Just like the gh in Redheugh is pronounced like an f.
I never lived in the village, but very close to it. After decades away from Gateshead and at the age of 57 it still makes an occasional appearance in dreams, especially variations on the open middle part, but with a much steeper vertiginous slope to the ground and more elaborate and bizarre walkways.
I did have schoolfriends who's parents had flats there, and my memory is off an unusual determinedly modern layout, but warm and welcoming once you were in. It was just running the gauntlet getting there...
The Askew arms and the shops on the south side of Askew road were still there in the early days on the top of the village they would have went along coatsworth road , the arrival of vivo spar and laws pretty much finished the small shop
Great video. I live on the site now at the highest point and yes it's a fantastic view.
Loving your content Jordan! You should cover some history on Low Fell; a lot of history around there.
Thanks Jack, I will have to look into some history there
Another great video with a fascinating insight to this particular area of Gateshead. As you rightly point out the views are superb......IF the land is developed properly it could arguably become a desirable place to live and work? Fingers crossed then for the council to do the right thing 🤞
That tower block still standing, I lived at no4.
Absolutely fascinating Jordan, I love your videos, the content, the background music, the pacing of them. I like how it keeps cutting like your chopping them, it just seems to work. I only know about this village because of Get Carter. I went looking for all the locations from the film in 2001 and used the remaining St Cuthbert village high rise as a reference. The actual filming of the inside scenes were shot on location too I believe. Caine blew his stack because the camera man messed up in the scene.............anyway I digress, cracking video Jordan 👍
Thanks Michael! Visiting all the get Carter locations sounds super interesting, seen a good website online that shows where they all are. So I’m going to have to try it myself at some point!
@@JordanReeve It’s a shame for you that the car park’s gone, there’s a butcher’s called Get Carter’s on West Street, it’s pretty much right opposite where the entrance ramp was to the the famous car park.
@@JordanReeve Owen Luder has been back up many times to the area celebrating his brutalists buildings. Get Carter car park and the Dunston rocket for example. I met him in 2010 just before they pulled the car park down. What a lovely man, with his big dicky bow tie, what a character :) I think he's still alive, he'll be 93...get yourself an interview with him Jordan, I'm sure he'd be up for it 👍
@@BABYCHAOS26 its nowhere near the entrance ramp its oppossite the entrance to the old market the new tesco car entrance is closer to the car park entrance
I lived in one of the walks off the walkway at the bottom of the Village - as we called it - 1978 to 1982. Lowick. Like anything, there were good and bad points. I still dream about the walkway. As a 5 year old child, it was sort of space age. The good: the stucco rooftops which had no divisions were lovely and bright in summer. Full of plants and pets (ferrets!) - like a discovery park. The community centre discos and activities were great and The Mitre pub (get it: St Cuthbert’s 😉) was very community minded. There was a Spar and a laundrette(?) Also, there were small holed cubby dens underneath the ground walkways and a great park and not far to the Library, school or the Tyne of the brambles on the rail yard. To us, it was all adventure. The split level was quite groovy.
On the negative side: the rubbish chutes were not a good idea (the smell of rotten split open waste in sumner was disgusting), the inner build quality was poor and, as commented, the council did not maintain the halls or the buildings well enough. And as residents and families moved out, it was filled with some less socially minded people.
My overall memory is off feeling on the edge of a world, like a limbo - between the town and the river.
It was also never Coothberts: it’s pronounced as it is normally - Cuthbert’s.
And thanks for this video, Jordan - it’s a different perspective when you’ve lived in a place. I live on the North Downs in West Berkshire now in another close community - village with a small v - but I think there is much less social cohesion and community spirit than there was in the Village.
I remember you Bernadette, Wow we were little kids, I think
You lived in Hexham walk, same as us, number four we lived… we then moved into Lowick walk, My name is Richard Curry I have a twin brother Craig and two older sisters Deborah and Denise.. I remember you having curly hair I think..it’s great to read your memories,, take care,, x
Lived in beadnell and bellshill walk as a child, was there when they knocked it down, used to love the place. Good to see it again really, I miss the places in a way.
Ivy Hodge's exploding gas cooker back in 1968 certainly changed public opinion on high-rise living; sadly before some estates were even completed they were unpopular. I know some blocks in Newcastle were converted to all-electric, and I remember seeing previously fitted blast angles installed in some tower blocks in Sunderland during a recent refurbishment, designed to hold everything together if an explosion were to happen.
All electric definitely was the way to go, but I remember hearing about the fitted blast angles. However they did little to change public perception I believe
I lived in one of the main tower blocks above The Bridges in Sunderland for 15 years.
My father was the architect who designed Saint Cuthbert's Village. I disagree that this was brutalist architecture. As a resident has pointed out, the design might seem dated by today's standards, but at the time it was developed with modernisation and a better standard of living in mind. My father developed split-level apartments, the first of their kind back then, and was considered so innovative that it was officially opened by then PM, Harold Wilson.
See my reply. There were good points. I did live there once.
Hello, I don't suppose he still has any technical drawings or photos or something like that which you could share with me and fellow residents? I lived there and love collecting what images I can about the place.
Oh, and if you could, could you ask him if this design of block was ever copied anywhere? From time to time people had told me there were copies of this in Eastern Europe but no one could say specifically where.. I didn't have any faith in that, though. I think they just knew something similar.
I loved the split level apartments as a visitor. I also don't have particularly negative feelings about concrete especially interspersed with greenery. Still gives me a warm feeling when see renderings of this sort of thing.
Every neighborhood is eventually at the mercy of it's residents and getting that mix right seems like pure alchemy.
My brother was (is) an electrician for Gateshead council; when vandals smashed the lights in the covered walkways, they replaced the original fittings with unbreakable flush fittings. When the did that, vandals started spraying black paint over the lights rendering then useless. Not sure you can design that kind of behaviour out of a place.
Hi Jordan - I never thought I would be interested in Urban Planning - but I do find your videos interesting for the "back stories". As an urban planner of the future, I am interested in your views around cities going forward. I live in Australia (ex Newcastle)- A lot of my colleagues now work remotely from home (various cities) - visits to the City office are not required so much - obviously there is a lot of office space available these days.
Do you think the nature of cities have now fundamentally changed due to the effects of Covid - or will things revert back to pre-covid.
As a planner you obviously have to take the long term view - I am interested what you think as that future Urban planner.
Keep up the good work :)
Hi Simon, I think the concept of urban planning can stray into lots of different things, but my favourite is the history of towns and places and how that should shape their development. Im glad you like the channel!
I think there will be a shift into more hybrid working in the future, with more collaborative spaces in current office blocks. However as someone starting out in their career, going into the office is invaluable for someone like me to learn from their colleagues. This is not as easily done online and I think coming together as a team is always benefical to new starters.
Horrendously cold in winter months, I used to babysit on Cestria Walk 🥶
I grew up in the terrace houses on Stanhope Street, and so did Hank Marvin. He's done better than me, but it was a great place to live. I knew all my neighbours and they were good working class people, went to Todds Nook school, were the teachers were really old fashioned, thought nothing of hitting you on you nuckles with the edge of a ruler for writing with you left hand.
nice vlog i live near there
No one consulted ordinary working people about the type of accommodation they wanted to live in back in those days and brutalist architecture was just a way of reducing unit costs and building times.
Building control and planning in those days neither rigorous or devoid of corruption and many blocks suffered from dampness, water ingress, cold bridging, poor heating and poor ventilation from the outset.
To compare Shieldfield/Jesmond with St Cuthbert’s ignores both the radically different geography and demographic. A fairer comparison might be with Cruddas Park.
It is also important to remember that the council in those days played a gate keeper role and ensured that people ended up in particular developments or districts using criteria which are quite abhorrent in this day and age.
The failure of certain brutalist/modernist housing developments was as much due to these policies and the abject failure to canvas the opinion of prospective tenants, as the poor real world execution of the schemes.
Thanks for the very detailed breakdown mate, I realise my comparisons were based more of construction projects from a similar period rather than wider criteria.
Can you say what criteria they used?
Who was Saint Coothbert?
Interesting, now Ouseburn part 3, Ouseburn part 3! or Helix or Ochre yards. Thank you very much ;)
Helix is coming soon, do not worry!
Used to go out with a girl at the bottom end of the estate (Tracy sykes, spelling probably wrong 🙈) used to think they were very modern at the time as I grew up in a old Victorian house but looking back I would of hated living in them now.
Lived on Bamburgh walk St cuthberts village
Great video but your pronunciation is a little off for some of the place names. Overall though great video and I've subscribed
You're quite right, we have a lot of this sort of thing in the former East Germany (still called the "new federal states" 30 years later - some of the "old" ones are only 70 y.o.), but being pernickety, I would call into question your description of the architecture as "brutalist", which I understand as more Le Corbusier & Co - in Germany we call this style "Plattenbauweise", "prefabricated elements construction". Ferroconcrete skeleton, prefabricated cladding, drywall internal partitioning, bob's yer uncle. A term I have heard used is the "high rise estate", which always contained five-storey blocks as well as towers. "Brutalist" needs to have the aesthetic of the concrete bunker i.m.h.o. Again, you focus rightly on the social issues. These were solved in E. Europe in quite a different manner. Not to be recommended.
Have you seen any in Germany which are very similar to these? I don't mean the tower block, just the lower ones. I'd heard there were copies somewhere in Europe but that's all and it may have just been a rumour.
@@virtualvalium Try the outskirts of any medium - large East German city.
Fella.
If you got rid of the music in the background of this video that's very distracting and off-putting. You will have a great video here. Please re upload this video but without the music. It totally overpowers your voice. However a very well researched video.
Thank you for uploading it.
Pure.
Thanks for the honest feedback I appreciate it
What job do you do? Seems to me like you do something to do with planning or architecture.
I work as a planning consultant
My family come from this area
I hate that bridge, I purely hate that bridge have lots of unhappy memories crossing it, it’s a magic bridge coz no matter how far along you are it just never seems to end when walking across it #justsaying
sound not in sync
Cheers George. Got this mic that’s more of a pain to use than it’s worth aha
They have just replaced one set of problems for another set of problems simple as
Who is this coooothbert? It's cuthbert! It's really off-putting when you pronounce common names wrong!
Clueless
I wonder why English schools don't teach this style of presentation, say a few words... stop, move a few inches, start talking again, stop etc etc etc... maybe because it is annoying, pointless, they aren't trying to be american replicas
Nice one Toni
Shame as it was very good except for this hipster editing..
This man needs to give up what he's doing he has no clue about the village are people who lived there and for saying the no shops are pubs in the area don't no where he's getting that from he's completely deluded