This aerial photo of Grey’s Monument was taken in 1924, but the area behind the Earl is much more interesting. Railway carriages were built for royalty here, as well as a world famous brand of bicycle, and it was the temporary home for a number of elephants and camels.
Nowadays, the area is mostly occupied by Fenwick’s department store. They bought the property to the left of Emerson Chambers in 1920, connecting Blackett Street with the store’s main frontage on Northumberland Street. The store would later consume the row of buildings at the top right of the photo, they were on Elswick Court, and until 1913 had been occupied by the Elswick Cycle Company.
Established in 1893, the company took its name from Elswick Court and was one of the most famous cycling brands in the country, exporting their bikes throughout the British Empire. One of their warehouses was used by the American travelling circus Barnum & Bailey in 1898 when they brought their ‘Greatest Show On Earth’ to Newcastle; the elephants, camels and horses were billeted in them. It later became Fenwick’s blouse department.
Elswick Court had previously been the home of John & Henry Burnup’s coachworks, which was established in 1841 to manufacture horse-drawn carriages for the nobility and gentry of Northumberland and Durham. They got an unusual request in 1858, to build a double saloon carriage for a locomotive that had been ordered from Robert Stephenson by His Highness Said Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt.
They were said to be the most sumptuously decorated railway carriages ever produced in this country, but were so large that a house on Elswick Court had to be partly demolished in order to remove them from the factory. The coaches were exhibited at the Central Station before being shipped off to Egypt, and the Pasha was delighted with the purchase and enjoyed driving his new locomotive.
The buildings are long gone, swallowed up over the years by Fenwick’s, but you can still visit Elswick Court. Its Northumberland Street entrance was preserved when Fenwick’s extended their store northwards in 1994, building above it. There’s a flower stall there now, which extends about 30 yards along the Court, before coming to halt at Fenwick’s delicatessen.