Our two photographs of Newcastle's Haymarket area illustrate the changes that have taken place there over the last quarter of a century.
The images were shared with ChronicleLive by Trevor Ermel, the Whitley Bay -based amateur photographer whose sizeable body of work charts scenes around urban Tyneside and on the River Tyne since the mid 1960s
Trevor says: “The older picture was shot in February 1995 from the top of the car park on Percy Street, looking towards Haymarket shortly before redevelopment work started on the whole area later that year."
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Central to the image is Haymarket bus station.
Serves mainly passengers heading into Northumberland, it opened in 1930, just a year or two after new bus stations at Worswick Street and Marlborough Crescent began operating in the south and west of the city respectively.
The latter two stations are long-gone, but Haymarket remains - although in a greatly remodelled form.
Soon after Trevor's main image was captured, the old station and adjacent shops would be demolished.
So too would the popular Farmer’s Rest pub. This incarnation of the drinking hole was built in 1920, but there had been an inn and hotel on the same site for around 200 years.
The area would be transformed by the expansion of Newcastle's Marks and Spencer.
The store had served its first shoppers back in 1932. In 1996 it became the second largest M&S in the country after Marble Arch, following the completion of a massive redevelopment programme.
The sales floor increased from 72, 000 sq ft to 140, 000 sq ft, and there was a new customer restaurant.
The old bus station, which had been spruced up and expanded in 1971, would be entirely rebuilt hand-in-hand with M&S.
The new £1m station was officially opened by Newcastle United star Peter Beardsley on April 1, 1996.
The panoramic view also takes in Haymarket Metro station (which was totally revamped in 2009) and the city’s distinctive Civic Centre, the seat of local government in Newcastle, and opened in 1967.
Just to the left of it, in our picture, is the church of St Thomas the Martyr. Designed by the famous architect John Dobson, and built in 1830, it stands on the site of an old leprosy hospital, St Mary Magdalene’s Hospital.
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