Handyman Fenham

About  Fenham in Newcastle upon Tyne

When we drive out of Newcastle or think about where we live, many of us might think of an area. It is generally a bit sprawling, ranging from the top of West Road to the periphery of Scotswood Road and again away from Central Station, a trickily located neighbourhood.

Fenham, pre- and post-Lent, is one of the different but interconnected places that make up Newcastle. We’re pretty much residential, with streets of mostly back-to-backs topped with terraced houses, mostly covered in white paint and bay windows, apart from the western parts where you get into the Victorian semis with more extensive gardens. We also have flats, sheltered communal living, supported housing in half-derelict homes, newly built estates, corner shops, parks, and churches in which to worship, playgroups, gardens, schools, and pubs in Fenham as all belonging here. It makes us a quirky block. It is not quite as reasonably affluent or middle class as your Heaton or Jesmond, but with a village vibe, it is a bit removed from feeling entirely inner-city working class.

An analysis of what makes Fenham, Fenham? Can we talk about it as a strong community, lacking perhaps but still busy with its history? Seen as a bit of a difficult left neighbourhood accessible only to those already able to live there and those who have no choice but to accept what housing associations are offering: decent three-bedroom semis and the like for those with smaller absolute rents. Our study of Fenham’s past and present aims to identify what keeps it from being merely the infrastructure linking Newcastle environments and what problems everyone can relate to, we will search for those stories.

Historical Development of Fenham

Initially, Fenham was a small settlement several miles away from the city centre of Newcastle that has grown significantly since.

1. The development of the Industrial Age prompted significant in-migration, as people moved to the city, ultimately driven by the demand for labour supply and fueled by smaller push factors relating to tradition, employment opportunity, and conditions. These earlier migrations led to a permanent Scottish sub-community within the broader area that would later become Fenham. 2. Early houses were ephemeral, as slum-like four-roomed properties – some terraced, some stand-alone – started filling the land of the Parish of Westgate.

A secondary migration occurred in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as industry shifted. In the South of England, the new service-based jobs replaced lost industry, but in the North, these jobs were either at the factory or in the construction of junctions. For many Fenham residents, their response to poverty was second, third, and fourth consecutive housing moves. Two distinctive sub-sections grew. In the area from the Civic Centre to the General Hospital (west of Fenham), the population was pretty transient despite very long histories of ownership, due in part to many prisons and army garrisons in the South and joinery yards, from which followed the railway and the telephone exchange. However, they left an identifiable high proportion of Catholic religion and two Gaelic football teams.

Key Landmarks and Architectural Features

Key landmarks and architectural features Nadir and Hazelford Halls, St. James & St. Basil, the Fenham Association Institute, and Arthur’s Hill Library are just some of the buildings and places that Fenham’s streets host, which are mentioned in local studies and visits throughout the decades. Fenham hosts several architectural styles, including styles of the late 19th century, Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance Revival. Although adequate housing remained central to the aspirations of the B&WCSC, the addition of 1890 the library and, later, the addition of the Institute became statements of the restorative and cultural benefits beyond the practical provision of housing.

Providing theatres, libraries, and other public amenities was both a philanthropic act and a practical measure. Patronage from local authorities went beyond mere provision of a place of learning. Fenham’s landmarks tell the story of aspirations, limitations of resources, and fashion: they are the landmarks that look upon the parade of residents coming and going and the remnants of the area’s rich history. Some are hidden in corners of pockets behind new building regenerations, and some line the main streets, shedding light on the ordinary, everyday, but ultimately necessary act of engaging in community or cultural readings. These structures were, and are, expressions of the self and the Engagement in processes. While these are just some of the sites to see when walking Fenham’s streets, in certain respects, these works can be seen to serve another primary purpose, one which others beyond the walkers engaged in highlighting Fenham’s architecture, and one which underwrites the start of this text: part of what makes somewhere feel unique or good is the existence of ‘public attachment’.

Contemporary Issues and Challenges

The analysis being undertaken for this project faces Fenham in two directions. Several straightforward and current issues were highlighted in the media section of correspondence with local people, including the affordability and quality of housing, standards of public health, education, and services, and broader social cohesion and identification/disidentification with the area. They are concerned with the shot lengths and the organization of the local environment, society, economy, and population demography.

The affordability and ability of local people to own or rent their own homes in Fenham is undoubtedly the highest profile currently on this list and is of some interest today as an indicator of broader social cohesion. The substantial difference in house prices and demography between Fenham and the city’s more middle-class areas has always acted as a visual proxy for low house prices and social and crime problems. With the increasing importance of improved community relations and a more inclusive vision of city life, the persistence of such disparity is a significant cause for concern. The reduced life chances and quality of life this reflects is also troubling. In considering local demographic change, people often ask, ‘Whom do you care about?’ in identifying these current and emerging concerns in Fenham, the project has sought to record the main determinants of people’s spatial behaviour.

In thinking about domesticity, in cooperation with members of your project team, I have already tried to think about Fenham in this broader context of change. Given the transient and changing value of “identity” and the place identity that Fenham produces, and, more generally, the devising of “community” and communal geopolitical self-identification, the aim of your project should be to find ways of empowering residents to articulate some routine discontent into the language of the literate “expert”. A defeatist and institutionalist discourse is historically thickening around the production of social difference in contemporary Britain that defines it as “inevitable” and presents it as the overwhelming product of “globalization” and multiculturalism. The project should do something to open up this territory and offer resources to people again. It should be helpful to new knowledge for the new vision of Fenham as a 21st-century “vibrant, sustainable city”.

Community Initiatives and Future Prospects

However, the resilience and innovation shown by Fenham residents are echoed on a community level. Fenham has several successful grassroots organizations and community groups that are pivotal in support services and local advocacy. The role of social enterprise in Fenham has also been significant, with six projects being delivered through the Fenham Partnership: Fresh Start, West End Befriending, HealthWorks, Advocacy Centre North, Outer West Youth Project, and Benwell LifeCare. The Goodspace Doxology Project also provided Fenham residents access to these services. The Fenham Hall Drive and Fenham Barrasford Park Gardening project are just two images in this presentation that demonstrate the ambitions held in Fenham for enhancing community well-being and place. Of course, research on resilience suggests that those areas are relatively resource-rich and likely to be innovative; yet, there are suggestions that cultural wealth can also be seen as community assets. Indeed, a wealthy local culture in music, writing, and visual arts remains a strength reflected by community arts activity and the planned development of a Creative Alliance.

Future Prospects

Governance: there is local activism in Fenham, from residents’ associations to environmental groups, community-based development trusts and self-help organizations. Fenham is supported, nominally at least, via the evolutionist innovations of the decentralized Local Service Team and the region-wide New Vision for Newcastle. Urban Planning: a focused street design consultation is underway; funding will be used to generate a series of street pilots. A new Area Based Regeneration Team – a partnership of the City Council and the Government Office – uses a joint budget to determine policy. So far, no large-scale community consultation has been undertaken on the document. Public Engagement: Action for Fenham is, by necessity, inclusive and seeks to listen to different points of view from all sectors of society.