1-12, With Attached Walls, Fences And Pergolas 1-28 (Consec), With Attached Walls, Fences And Pergolas 1-8 (Including Shop), With Attached Walls, Fences And Pergolas 1-81 (Consec) With Attached Walls, Fences And Pergolas St Lawrence Rc Church, Spires

Perimeter block of maisonettes with two link blocks, an attached church and church hall, designed 1972-75 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor with site architect Vernon Gracie, structural engineers White, Young and Partners, and main contractor Stanley Miller Ltd. The church itself dates from around 1895, architect unknown.

The main housing blocks use in situ concrete cross wall construction with concrete strip foundations and ground beams. The road elevations are clad in strong brown, red, orange and buff patterned metric modular brickwork, with red and buff brick to the inner faces and white Eternit panels to upper floors, featuring elaborate timber detailing at all levels. The two link blocks (Headlam House and Felton House) are constructed from concrete blocks clad in pale metric modular brick. Pre-cast cantilever brackets are cast into the cross walls to support balconies. All buildings have pale blue sheet metal roofs. Projecting lift and stair towers rise to metal-clad points, forming important townscape features. The structures range from five to eight storeys on the main road elevations (Conyers Road), with one and two-storey infill sections linking Felton Walk, St Lawrence's church and Byker Crescent.

The housing layout combines two-storey family maisonettes at ground-floor level, set within walled gardens on the inner face, with smaller maisonettes above. The upper maisonettes are accessed from balconies on every third level. These balconies are semi-independent structures designed to reduce noise, with seats or planting boxes covering the gaps between balcony and building. Living rooms and bedrooms are positioned above or below entrance level, which features kitchen-diners with paired entrance doors. Bedroom balconies serve as fire escape routes. All windows are timber in timber sub-frames with aluminium opening lights, mainly sliding. Double-glazed units are fitted only to the tiny north-facing windows serving kitchens, stairs and bathrooms. Yellow and red projecting ventilators are prominent features.

Long Headlam has brown balconies with built-in seats and red enclosed projecting balconies at the ends where access galleries meet lifts and stairs.

Felton Walk comprises five storeys with brown balconies and access galleries. Ground-floor maisonettes have blue metal door hoods, green fences and built-in seats. A retaining wall abuts St Lawrence's Church, with community rooms in the infill space. The exterior face displays particularly large-scale and bold patterns, with blue fences to ground floor and pergolas on this elevation.

St Lawrence's Roman Catholic Church is constructed of roughly dressed sandstone with a slate roof. It has four and a half bays with a broad entrance front facing compass east, featuring a corner spirelet. Lancet windows and an arcade sit under broad hoods. The side elevation has a heavily dentiled eaves cornice. The entrance is set between inset half columns and roll mouldings under a pointed hood, surmounted by a cross; another cross marks the gable end. A rear vestry with small buttresses is also present. The church's incorporation into the perimeter wall was a key feature of Erskine's concept for Byker, with St Lawrence's demonstrating this principle exceptionally and forming a strong group and visual contrast. Community rooms to the side, entered from Byker Crescent, feature a red timber pergola marking the entrance and providing a striking accent. These rooms have stepped blue metal roofs incorporating dormers within red timber eaves. The interiors of the community rooms are not of special interest.

Byker Crescent rises to five storeys and forms a prominent semi-circle at the north-east corner of the estate. It has brown balconies and access galleries with red-brown enclosures at the ends where access galleries meet lifts and stairs. Red timber partially infills the top of the central carriage entrance.

Headlam House (link block) accommodates a corner shop at ground floor and eighteen flats or maisonettes. It is constructed of concrete block cross walls with pre-cast cantilevers supporting balconies, clad in pale metric modular brick with blue metal roofs. The block is three to four storeys high with brown timber balconies, including south-facing balconies under the eaves where the block steps down in height. A brown access gallery at second-floor level links to Long Headlam, and brown metal door hoods serve the flats.

Felton House (link block) rises three to four storeys. The top flat is accessed by concrete external stairs under a plastic sheet shelter and has south-facing windows overlooking the roofs. The block features green balconies, with a brown and green timber linking walkway at second-storey connecting to Felton Walk. Red doors and a brown end balcony facing south are present, with brown fences to ground-floor units. The maisonette interiors are simple, some incorporating built-in counters separating kitchen and dining areas.