We step back 50 years to a Newcastle and Gateshead Quayside much different to today’s. It was January 1975 and our evocative photograph captures a location still rooted to its long-time maritime and industrial past on a section of the River Tyne defined by factories, warehouses, and shipping.
Our then-and-now images were supplied by photographer Trevor Ermel whose rich body of work has documented the changing face of urban Tyneside and the River Tyne over the last five decades. Born and bred in Gateshead, and now a resident of Whitley Bay, Trevor has kindly shared much of his work with ChronicleLive, and has just published his first book of photographs, All My Yesterdays.
Of the Quayside scene, showing Newcastle as viewed across the River Tyne from Gateshead, he says: “We see the ship, Whitethorn, which was built in Bristol in 1963. It had been converted to a drilling research vessel by the time my picture was taken, and was used for exploratory drilling during the early phase of oil exploration in the North Sea. Directly behind the ship is the old Co-operative Wholesale Society building.”
Fast forward half a century, and Trevor’s 2024 shot of the same location captures a very different Quayside. The Gateshead Millennium Bridge dominates the scene, and the former Co-op building now hosts one of the region’s finest hotels, the Malmaison.
The equivalent view and a very different Quayside in December 2024
(Image: Trevor Ermel)
Both the Newcastle and Gateshead sides of the River Tyne have been scrubbed up and transformed over the last few decades. The Millennium Bridge, the Baltic modern art gallery, the Glass House (formerly The Sage) music centre, alongside new apartments, hotels, bars and restaurants have turned the Quayside into one the region’s most vibrant leisure and cultural locations – and all in the shadow of the Tyne’s spectacular bridges, the Castle and other historic sites.
Gateshead College is also based close by, a multi-million pound arena complex is set to take shape at Gateshead Quays, while across the river in Newcastle sit the Law Courts. It’s a far cry from the former gritty industrial location which found itself down at heel by the 1980s.
Trevor Ermel’s book, All My Yesterdays: Three decades of Tyneside photographs, is priced at £19.95. It contains around 200 pictures, both colour and black and white. You can buy the book at the Newcastle City Library shop, Gateshead Central Library gift shop, and Come View My Art, which is based at 120-122 Sheriffs Highway, Gateshead, NE9 5SD.
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