Nos. 1-52, And Attached Walls, Seats, Fences, Pergolas And Steps Nos. 1-55, And Attached Walls, Seats, Fences, Pergolas And Steps Structure Housing District Heating System

Perimeter block of 107 flats built between 1971 and 1974 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor, with Vernon Gracie as site architect, White, Young and Partners as structural engineer, and Stanley Miller Limited as main contractor. The building employs in situ concrete cross wall construction with concrete strip foundations and ground beams, clad in strong brown, red, orange and buff patterned metric modular brick to the road elevations, red and buff brick to the inner face, and white eternit panels to the upper floors with elaborate timber detailing throughout. Pre-cast cantilever brackets are cast into the cross walls. The roofs are pale blue sheet metal, with projecting lift and stair towers rising to metal-clad points that form important townscape features. A prominent boiler flue at the end of Raby Gate adjoins the Shipley Street Baths, which originally provided the district heating system.

The building rises five to eight storeys, with a semi-basement at the junction with Raby Street. Ground-floor level contains two-storey family maisonettes set within walled gardens on the inner face, with smaller maisonettes above accessed from balconies on every third level. These balconies are semi-independent structures designed to reduce noise, each with a seat or planting box covering the gap between the balcony and the building. Living rooms and bedrooms are positioned above or below the entrance level, which features kitchen-diners with entrance doors set in pairs. Bedroom balconies double as fire escape routes.

Raby Gate displays prominent green timber balconies and access galleries on a red subframe, with blue ends enclosed where the lifts and stairs provide access. Shipley Rise features blue enclosed end balconies and green balconies. Brown fences, pergolas and fixed seating serve the ground-floor maisonettes. All windows are timber, set in timber surrounds with aluminium opening lights. Windows facing north are double glazed with a wide gap. Timber doors have glazed panels, many since renewed in hardwood, with a fixed seat to the side. The north face displays red and yellow ventilators with bold brick patterns denoting estate entrances, incorporating old stone features said to come from Newcastle's Old Town Hall. Interior maisonettes are simple in design, with stairs leading up from the kitchen-diner, some still divided by the original counter. The north side features retaining walls, green fences and blue pergolas.

An irregular four-sided concrete structure with a red brick roof, housing the original Chirton district heating system, stands in the open area immediately south of Shipley Rise. It has roof-top access steps and steps down to the lower door.

This section and the section between Dalton Crescent and Shipley Walk formed the first part of the Byker Wall to be built and established its distinctive style. In March 1967, the Housing Architect's Department proposed building a barrier block to shelter the area from a proposed inner motorway to be built along the line of the present relief road and the metro. This was revised in May 1968 after a Conservative majority came to power. In 1969, Ralph Erskine was recommended by the Housing Design and Programme Working Group to undertake responsibility for the Byker Redevelopment, initially to reappraise the previous year's proposals from the Housing Architect's Department. He endorsed the barrier block concept and based his design on his uncompleted mining town of Svappavaara, Sweden (1963), where a barrier block was conceived as a way of creating a microclimate in its south-facing lee. Similar effects are achieved here, with the south-facing balconies and flats maximising remarkable views. The lack of windows on the outer side and the forest of red and yellow ventilators make it appear strong, yet the decorative style seems casual.

The modular metric brick, measuring 290mm by 90mm by 65mm, was developed by Crossley and Sons in County Durham in collaboration with Newcastle City Council. When mortared, each unit forms a 12-inch by 4-inch by 3-inch dimension. The design reflected Newcastle's late-1960s policy of not placing family units above ground floor, whilst the small upper maisonettes accommodated the substantial need for one-bedroomed units serving the high proportion of elderly people then forming the Byker community.