The Old Police Station
Map
Map
Story & Experience
In choosing my site for this year’s Global Earth Exchange, I decided to stay local and choose a place within walking distance so that I could visit on a number of occasions without needing to use a car or public transport. This left me with the urban landscape of a small coastal town in the North East of England where I live. The project is written up as a blog with photographs and reflections on the work. You can look at this by following this link.
As with many places in the area, Whitley Bay grew as a coastal resort around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was in large part facilitated by the arrival of the railway in 1882. The area was also not far from the industry and seafaring that flourished on Tyneside, so accommodated people involved in those industries and around this time house building increased dramatically.
As I walked around the area, I was very conscious of the way that the town’s history has impacted on the buildings and the landscape of the town. Today the town still has a seaside atmosphere with a fine promenade and sandy beaches. At the end of its two-mile stretch of sand, St Mary’s island boasts a non-functional lighthouse which is a beloved local landmark and expanses of rock, exposed at low tide, where seals and waders can be seen. The centre of the town with its shops and other commercial buildings is a little back from the seafront. These shops are mostly located between the railway station and the sea on an interconnecting route which runs from Cullercoats in the south, along Whitley Road which parallels the seafront, then turns through the centre of Whitley Bay, snaking inland and then northwards along Park View. The town has quite a variety of shops, reflecting a lot of local activity. Many are well used, but there are also, as with many high streets, a good proportion of abandoned shops, some in quite poor states of repair. Whilst some of these date back to the early twentieth century and earlier, there are also some interesting art deco buildings. In particular these are in the central part of the route, where the road becomes wider, with a large pavement area and some seating. Here too we find a mix of facilities. A number of building societies, some bargain chains, a well used greengrocer, a Sainsburys, a Greggs, a B&M and several pubs and cafes. This part of town is functional, and in places somewhat down at heel, unlike Park View where the up-market independent shops are found.
The Old Police station is located in a side road off this central area, which is otherwise largely residential. The road runs in the direction of the station, so I sometimes walk past the building when going to catch a metro train. I did not immediately realise its history and there were no signs indicating what it had been, but it clearly had been a public building of some substance. I saw two doorways on the front too. One was marked Public and the other Magistrates which gave me some clues, and some online research told me that it had indeed been a police station but that the police had moved on to other premises in 2017 and it had been empty ever since. Plans appear to have been submitted to develop the building and create flats, but I am not clear whether these are being pursued. At the moment the site is vacant and nature is taking over. My interest therefore is three-fold:
1) Honouring a building that has a history and is interesting architecturally and hoping that it will be transformed into housing which is both appropriate to the needs of our time (affordable, environmentally sensitive) and respectful of its architectural features
2) Honouring nature’s spontaneous arrival on the site and its development over time
3) Honouring the people who have passed through the building in various capacities over the years
Life has been very busy for me during the last few months so I have not had time to do as much on this project as I might otherwise have liked to, but I am using this blog to share my reflections from a number of visits together with photographs taken on those visits.
In choosing my site for this year’s Global Earth Exchange, I decided to stay local and choose a place within walking distance so that I could visit on a number of occasions without needing to use a car or public transport. This left me with the urban landscape of a small coastal town in the North East of England where I live. The project is written up as a blog with photographs and reflections on the work. You can look at this by following this link.
As with many places in the area, Whitley Bay grew as a coastal resort around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was in large part facilitated by the arrival of the railway in 1882. The area was also not far from the industry and seafaring that flourished on Tyneside, so accommodated people involved in those industries and around this time house building increased dramatically.
As I walked around the area, I was very conscious of the way that the town’s history has impacted on the buildings and the landscape of the town. Today the town still has a seaside atmosphere with a fine promenade and sandy beaches. At the end of its two-mile stretch of sand, St Mary’s island boasts a non-functional lighthouse which is a beloved local landmark and expanses of rock, exposed at low tide, where seals and waders can be seen. The centre of the town with its shops and other commercial buildings is a little back from the seafront. These shops are mostly located between the railway station and the sea on an interconnecting route which runs from Cullercoats in the south, along Whitley Road which parallels the seafront, then turns through the centre of Whitley Bay, snaking inland and then northwards along Park View. The town has quite a variety of shops, reflecting a lot of local activity. Many are well used, but there are also, as with many high streets, a good proportion of abandoned shops, some in quite poor states of repair. Whilst some of these date back to the early twentieth century and earlier, there are also some interesting art deco buildings. In particular these are in the central part of the route, where the road becomes wider, with a large pavement area and some seating. Here too we find a mix of facilities. A number of building societies, some bargain chains, a well used greengrocer, a Sainsburys, a Greggs, a B&M and several pubs and cafes. This part of town is functional, and in places somewhat down at heel, unlike Park View where the up-market independent shops are found.
The Old Police station is located in a side road off this central area, which is otherwise largely residential. The road runs in the direction of the station, so I sometimes walk past the building when going to catch a metro train. I did not immediately realise its history and there were no signs indicating what it had been, but it clearly had been a public building of some substance. I saw two doorways on the front too. One was marked Public and the other Magistrates which gave me some clues, and some online research told me that it had indeed been a police station but that the police had moved on to other premises in 2017 and it had been empty ever since. Plans appear to have been submitted to develop the building and create flats, but I am not clear whether these are being pursued. At the moment the site is vacant and nature is taking over. My interest therefore is three-fold:
1) Honouring a building that has a history and is interesting architecturally and hoping that it will be transformed into housing which is both appropriate to the needs of our time (affordable, environmentally sensitive) and respectful of its architectural features
2) Honouring nature’s spontaneous arrival on the site and its development over time
3) Honouring the people who have passed through the building in various capacities over the years
Life has been very busy for me during the last few months so I have not had time to do as much on this project as I might otherwise have liked to, but I am using this blog to share my reflections from a number of visits together with photographs taken on those visits.
Act of Beauty
This blog is based on a number of visits which I made to the site. There is reflected on the story of the place, on the way nature took over the derelict space, and on different creative ways of looking at what was there. In the end I shared practice with the space in meditative presence, walking and quiet chanting
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