Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

A cool rendering of a Borg Cube flat-block. Copyright is with the artist David Bilborough http://www.davidbilbrough.co.uk  

I was contacted recently by David Bilbrough, a very talented artist. See the photo below. Well….. David is about to put on an exhibition on Kenton Bar Estate which will showcase his work alongside the original work done by Ryder & Yates when designing and building the estate. David is calling for people who currently live on the estate to help him with a small but important project. David would like to: - Conduct some interviews with people who live on the estate - residents young and old, short term or long term. he wants to hear thoughts and so on about who the estate has changed over the years He would like to get some copies of any personal archive images that people may have of life on the estate He would like it if people currently living on the estate would be willing to photograph areas within the estate that have a special meaning to them. He will provide camera AND film too   If anyone has any other information they would like to contribute to his exhibition then yo...

Name the cup. Name the year.   I know one of them - far right hand side, Machiavellian smile, lizard eyes, domed stupid melon hair - Phil Leaver.  He once played for Newcastle United.    

Friends, Roman’s, Countrymen – some time ago I received an email from our friends at Beautiful Kenton Bar telling me they had a surprise, a beautiful surprise, in the form of a photograph given to them by Rutter Carroll . The photo had been taken of a location on Kenton Bar Estate by a very famous architectural photographed – BK said they could tell me no more nor even show me the photograph until permission had been given for it’s inclusion on the blog. Yesterday the friendly and gallant folks at RIBA gave their permission for the photograph to be published free of the usual royalty payments and here my friends it is in all it’s glory. First two links if you want to find more:- Ribapix – an essential source of fine photographs for the aficionado of architecture and even some nice shots of Ryder and Yates if you care to do a search!! RIBA – the custodians of the history, art and culture of architecture in Britain And now dear friends – the picture itself courtesy of Henk Snoek a...

STOP PRESS!! If you have any pictures of the Kenton Bar Pyramid or Kenton Bar in general then please contact me here. I will gladly add them to the blog with any attribution you care to desire! Contact El Patron HERE Technorati Tags: kenton bar pyramid kenton bar estate newcastle upon tyne pyramid

Yes – along with the Great Wall of China – two of the remaining climbing frames on Kenton Bar estate are visible from space………………….see this comment from ‘The Bosnian’  HERE Images are from Google Earth – the greatest ever web application……if you have not installed it – then do so NOW!!! First one is near the 3-storey flats at the bottom of the school field – nr. Hartburn Walk on the top of the small hillock. The second one is on Ryal walk – same as the one that Mensforth mentioned earlier – the table and chairs a La “Le Corbusier…….” Technorati Tags: Visible , Kenton , street , Furniture , Great , Wall , China , estate , Bosnian , HERE , bottom , Hartburn , Walk , hillock , Ryal , Mensforth , chairs , Corbusier

Aside from bollards there were other various pieves of street furniture – among them were these curious little “huts” that had a standpipe inside supposedly for car washing. I never saw one that worked (if it were opened) and all the closed ones seemingly had no keys. Anyone else remember the location of these little blighters? Here is one I found at Eland Close Technorati Tags: Wash , Thingies , Aside , street , furniture , location , Here , Eland , Close

Ok – a gauntlet was thrown down by Shades….find the “drain pipe bollards” – for those of you not in the know these were bollards improvised by filling a section of grey PVC drainpipe with concrete and then embedding it in the ground. Designed as a method to stop people driving their cars on the paved areas. I had thought that there would still be a fine example at the top of Thirston Way – but alas the evidence gleaned from Google earth says no…. Anyone else remember which streets that bollards were erected? if so get going on Google earth and see if they are still there…… Technorati Tags: Elusive , Bollards , Shades , method , example , Thirston , Google , earth , areas , streets

I looked at the pitiful comment from Herr Mensforth  (you can see it HERE ) and noticed that he has been less than diligent in the discharge of his noble duties – i.e. he has NOT done my bidding correctly. Now I have had to waste my own very valuable time trawling the interweb to find out the street names of Kenton Bar Estate.  There are in fact 18 street names as follows:- Hazeldene Avenue Fawlee Green Ryal Walk Apperley Avenue Beal Green Byrness Close Mallowburn Crescent Studdon Walk Hartburn Walk Reestones Place Hazeley Grove Hazely Way Thirston Way Laverock Place Fourstone Closes Dunnykirk Avenue Eland Close Gunnerstone Grove I found an excellent map at this address HERE – ...

Yeah yeah yeah – I know – it is not strictly Kenton Bar related but many of us did go to Kenton School so here goes….. Yes Kenton School did have a game that rivals Eton's wall game AND Harry Potters Quiddich - we had the magical game of "Havers" - The brief rules were that a ball was kicked between in informal set of goals, each player defending their own "goal". The Goal consisted of either a school bag (for the posh kids) or a haversack or school sweater placed on the ground. Havers was usually played on the tennis courts or in the lower yard. I even remember it played with a stone replacing the ball on those days no one could nick a tennis ball to play with. AS a side note – most kids had the usual brownish coloured haversack and posh kids has the RAF blue one….we used to paint the lid of the haversack in an attempt to to waterproof and personalize it. I myself painted mine with metallic blue enamel paint (Hammerite actually stolen from my Dad's tool...

Mensforth has been busy!! Here are some photos from the camera of Mensforth himself. Kenton Bar Estate – the scene of the pyramid. Basically they have knocked the pyramid down and replaced it with some horrible landscaping. Instead of the beautiful concrete and tarmac they have this – what a travesty of justice. Le Corbusier would turn in his grave. Odd concrete climbing thing -'There was also a 3/2/1 thing by the flats at Hartburn Walk-on the little plateau by the school fields' (to go with Mensforth comment on parks)-aside:wonder if it was meant to be some kind of step pyramid?-still there today and indestructible ! These are photos from the same angles as the pyramid photos published below He tried to photograph them from the exact same spots as the originals on the website! Sadly the pyramid is gone :( Imagine running along this, leaping over the stairs(about 2m gap) to land on the blue!-what a height to drop if you got it wrong!'...(from original thu...

Whilst the rest of us were strumming ourselves Monsieur Mensforth has been busy doing my bidding. I dispatched him down to library and he looked through their archives. he found the grand sum of two photos of Kenton bar:- This is a view of Kenton Bar from Kenton lane looking down towards the top of Ryal Walk (does anyone know where the street names came from on Kenton Bar?). Just to the right of the lamppost you can see one of the legendary maps!!!. And – next the THIRD picture of the Kenton bar Pyramid on the web – see it here first…… If you click on this image you will be able to see the full size version. Just to the right of the lone tree you can see the top of the pyramid peaking over the rooftops.  This next image is from the brochure used to promote Kenton Bar as the place to live (I presume by the developer?) It shows a lady in a sheepskin coat whilst some kids gambol in the background. The reality is that the place she is depicted as standing in would have been cov...