Back of Byker Part II

 It's a fact that many have noted in print, that it's your own doorstep that seems to be the unknown territory.

I thought I knew a bit about Byker, but I don't know it all. It's a thrill to be honest, that there are still places and histories to be explored. Like all really old districts, some of the evidence of past times is 'hiding in plain sight'. We walk past fragments of old walls or overgrown spaces without having their significance spelt out to us. The Lower Ouseburn is such a place. Here history exists in layers like some Roman or Greek city.

Why have I missed Ballast Hills? The sign says it was once the Non-Conformist burial ground. When did that cease and why are the gravestones, such marvels of the stone masons lettering craft, laid flat?

Ballast Hill in a time of drought.

Given the occupations carved on the gravestones, and clearly these were not paupers, I presume these were Quaker graves. Until over due reform, Christian burial grounds were reserved for mostly Anglicans well off enough to afford it. The rest, went into 'common graves' unmarked, forgotten.

For some reason, mostly the same one at the end of it, the consequence of industrial decline and 're-location', destroyed more than just employment and buildings. Along with the decay that followed, came the lack of care for the unknown dead; in the 60s and 70s cemeteries became just another abandoned haunt, one that suffered vandalism at scale. Many were also bulldozed by boorish councils. Additionally, the were accidents. Gravestones and monuments are solid and very heavy ... Councils with responsibility and therefore legal exposure, countered by levelling much. That was the way it was sadly; still is in some places.

Walk a few yards on from the summit of the hill and the view is worth it. Then look behind you.

I have heard it said that Lord Armstrong, the presiding genius of Newcastle's 'Golden Era' of such men, had this extraordinary building made to keep Japanese customers for his warships feel at home. Maybe.

Ouseburn. Will it ever be completely 'gentrified'?

It was remarkable how in such a short walk I found such a complexity. And that wasn't by any means all of it. Thank heavens, the chaos of comings and goings, big ideas and financial crashes, religious intolerance, pennilessness and ambition, dumb estate agents, smartening up and refusnic punks can mingle like this!

Back of Byker Part I

 There always seems to be a corner of this part of the city I don't know or never explored. Sometimes we just don't know what is on our doorstep.

I came across Ballast Hill by accident, looking for a parking spot with a friend. What I saw made me want to return with a camera. Luckily fine days are not infrequent this summer. So I wandered in from Byker Bridge, skipping across when there was lull in the early afternoon traffic.

Somehow everything was a bit unexpected from the beginning ...

Part of an allotment tucked away. This bit of Byker overlooking the Lower Ouseburn was once packed with small and dirty industries, with plenty of byways that didn't suit either motor vehicles or planners. I imagine I was on one such, now a walk way over grown with buddleia and brambles ...

Next surprise. Ponies.

Another reminder of the pre-internal combustion engine era when much was moved by 'horses' and cart.

The way afterwards was familiar. True, but increasingly smarter. It's easy to forget how 'left behind' this part of the inner city was until recently. Lots more apartments and with this, a natural anxiety amongst some that the character of the Lower Ouseburn will be lost.

As I predicted in these pages ages back, the arrival of white Porches tends to spell trouble.

The loss of industry left behind a lot of unwanted property. Some, like the Berger Paintworks, after brief spell as an alternative space, were levelled. The Cluny was saved, by an ad-hoc theatre company known as The Buvver's who went about in what must have been a barely legal van when I first walked down in to the Lower Ouseburn decades ago.

This effect where-by artist's, makers and performers, moved into often dingy and dodgy places in the older cities across the world is by now well understood. The newcomer's rarely made bad neighbours; they have learned to work co-operatively, and with imagination make what was grimy seem almost exotic. This happened in the Lower Ouseburn alongside larger enterprises in London's docks and slums and NewYork's meat packing district to mention two other places I saw this happen.

Trouble is, having shown the way, the artists are usually pushed out by money ...

To be continued