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Archiver > NORTHUMBRIA > 2000-10 > 0970539241


From: Brian Pears <>
Subject: Re: [NMB] 29 Claremont Road, Newcastle?
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 03:14:01 +0100
References: <012301c02c76$1b3fc120$4543a8c2@12345>
In-Reply-To: <012301c02c76$1b3fc120$4543a8c2@12345>



>Does number 29 still exist and what does it look like? My grandma was born
>there.

Val

Mike is correct up to a point - the houses on Claremont Road
did consist of several terraces etc each with their separate
numbering systems - but that was true of most main roads early
in the 20th century. The *road* was all Claremont Road - but
most of the houses had terrace addresses too. So you would have
an address like "5 North Terrace, Claremont Road". Only the
section between the former Bird's Laundry and Hunter's Road
actually had "xx Claremont Road" addresses.

Almost all such split numbering schemes were abolished before
the 1950s. What makes Claremont Road extremely unusual -
probably unique in Newcastle - is that the houses STILL have
the old terrace addresses, so addresses today are the same as
they were when the houses were built.

(The exception is the SE section of Claremont Rd between Barras
Bridge and Queen Victoria Road - that started life as "Back
Eldon Street" and didn't become part of Claremont Road until the
1920s.)

As far as I recall most of the buildings on Claremont Road (the
whole road) appear to be "original", apart from the University
Buildings at the SE end. The address you are enquiring about
"29 Claremont Road" is still there (or was last time I looked)
- I think only the laundry (1 Claremont Road) at the end of the
block has been replaced. Now, as to what it looks like - and
here I'm relying entirely on my increasingly unreliable memory
- I think they are two-storey flats (two-apartment dwellings for
those overseas), but I stand ready to be corrected on this.

As for Mike's "bxxxxx freeway" - I guess he means our Central
Motorway East. Well it certainly won't win any prizes for
beauty - but for anyone like me who drove twice daily across
the city for several years, it was absolutely essential. I
personally hate changes to the historic landscape - but I'm
afraid we have to put up with them if the city is to continue to
function in the present. Preservation is fine, but a city
cannot be primarily a museum and still remain a place where we
live and work.

I'm as guilty as anyone in criticising changes to the city - but
then I look at old films (movies) like "Payroll" or "The Clouded
Yellow" and see the filth and squalor of parts of Newcastle in
the 1950s, and I see just how much the city has improved during
my lifetime. Just one more example of our hankering after the
entirely fictitious "good old days".


Cheers, Brian
-
--
Brian Pears Home page: http://www.swinhope.demon.co.uk/
Gateshead, UK Fax: 0870 1600865 (Charged at National Rate)

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