The older photo was taken in 1912, and the other one in 2024 for comparison. Clayton Street has always been the shabbiest part of Grainger Town and almost bankrupted its builder, Richard Grainger.
This stretch of Clayton Street was begun in 1837, after the core of Grainger Town was completed. It takes its name from John Clayton, the Town Clerk who assisted Richard Grainger in the redevelopment of Newcastle, and whose land the street passed through. Grainger’s business strategy depended on selling or letting his buildings as quickly as possible to finance the next batch, and Clayton Street is where he came unstuck.
He had already built around 450 properties in the town centre in the space of three years, and the market was saturated. He was accused of cutting corners by using building materials that wouldn’t have been considered fit for the rest of Grainger Town; the difference in quality is clearly visible today. Grainger’s debts were mounting and he had to flee Newcastle to avoid arrest, only returning when John Clayton, who was also his accountant and solicitor, had smoothed things over.
Huge swathes of the right side of the street remained empty and boarded up long after Grainger’s death in 1861, newspapers were still describing it as being deserted in the 1870s. John Clayton’s mansion was behind these buildings, he insisted they had no windows at the rear to prevent people looking onto his property. Some of the buildings are only one room deep in order to fit on Clayton’s land, so they were a hard sell to prospective tenants.
There had been hope of improvement when the Central Station opened nearby. But this was dashed when Grainger Street was extended in the 1860s, providing a direct route from the station into the heart of the town, and drawing footfall away from Clayton Street. The street is fully occupied now, the mix of charity shops and bargain stores are a good fit for their down-at-heel surroundings.
But the commercial failure of Clayton Street has had an unexpected benefit: nobody thought it worthwhile pulling its buildings down and replacing them with something modern. The streetscape is almost identical in both photos, taken over a century apart.
Photo credits: Newcastle City Libraries and Newcastle Stuff.