Carphone Warehouse building – complete with Northumbrian heroes
I can’t believe it took me so long to spot this one.
I’ve been telling you all to look up in Newcastle for – well, pretty much as long as I can remember. And yet I still managed to miss this one til February.
Some more detailed pics of the statues are on my flickr photostream – click here.
I looked for more links on this building to try and find out what it used to be and why these statues are there. I didn’t come up with much but this link to timmonet has some more history about what these people did, but also makes me think that while the Carphone Warehouse isn’t the most appropriate tenant for this building – it’s a damned sight better than ‘The Xmas Box’, as was there in 2000. (Also, I’m glad the netting has gone, although I’m kind of worried about how they protect the statues from the birds now….) And, would you believe it, further down the page, what’s there but pictures of the fire at Callers – that’s Callers as featured here last week. How odd!
I also found this link about the history of Eldon Square – interesting to think that Hotspur Way is named after this same Harry Hotspur.
Beth, well done, another fine spot. According to Public Sculpture in North-East England it was commissioned for “Boots Cash Chemists” in 1912 and remained a Boots shop until 1977, when they moved to Eldon Square.
Beat me to it Alf!
That is what I remember it mostly as, the large Boots store, in between Woolworths and Fenwicks at the bottom of Northumberland Street, before it moved to Eldon Square in 1976.
As a point of interest, the Eldon Square Boots originally when it opened, was “the biggest Boots in Europe” and had a third floor upstairs. The escalator up to there is gone, and it is almost like it never existed!
Beth, I wonder if I might be allowed to list your excellent “geordiewatchers photostream” in my list of Websites on SSC?
It would be in “Section 9″ (Local Photos, Local History, & Local Interest Websites) on this thread . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=990561
L O V E I T !