The black and white photo was taken in 1897 and shows a group of people posing next to a derelict medieval building in Newcastle city centre. The colour photo shows the same building today, after extensive restoration.
The building is part of Blackfriars Monastery and the photographer has identified himself with a sign on the front door, which says “Photograph taken May 8th by PM Laws”. Peter Maitland Laws was an early pioneer of photography in Newcastle and had a studio on Blackett Street opposite the Earl Grey Monument from 1874 until his death in 1906.
Blackfriars Monastery was founded around 1260 and built to a design that was typical of its time, with the buildings arranged around a square cloister, and it had extensive gardens and orchards on either side of the nearby Town Wall. King Edward III held court at Blackfriars in 1334, when Newcastle was a frontier town in the centuries-long wars with the Scots. The King of Scotland, Edward Baliol, paid homage to Edward in the monastery Chapel.
The monastery was surrendered to the Crown when King Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was sold to Newcastle Corporation, who leased the buildings around the cloister to an assortment of trade guilds. They continued to use the buildings for several centuries, which ensured their survival.
However, the buildings were in a sorry state by the 1820s when Stowell Street was built alongside the monastery. Industry came to the neighbourhood too when leatherworkers set up business, getting their raw materials from the huge Corporation Slaughterhouse next door to Blackfriars.
The 1899 Goad Insurance Plan gives us a picture of life in the buildings around the cloister, which was by now known as Friar’s Green. Some of the monastery buildings were converted into tenement housing, whose inhabitants had to tolerate the stench from the slaughterhouse and the two tripe factories to the left of the derelict building. Newspaper reports from the time add more detail, telling us the monks’ dormitory had become a busy brothel.
The monastery continued to deteriorate, and despite becoming a Grade I Listed Building in 1954, there was a real fear it could be lost. T Dan Smith’s Council made Blackfriars one of four urban areas of architectural and historical importance in 1963, the others being the Town Wall, the Castle Garth and Grainger Town. These were the first in the country, before the Civic Amenities Act of 1967 saw them replicated in towns and cities across the UK.
The restoration of the monastery buildings took a long time, beginning a decade later and reaching completion in 1980, when the Queen Mother performed the opening ceremony. They now house a number of arts and crafts workshops, as well as a restaurant and a bar.