It was February 1963 and, in a scene that would become commonplace at locations across Newcastle during this and the following decade, there was major construction work going on.
Sixty years ago we see work getting underway on a new office block, Thomson House in the city's Groat Market, that would be the home of the Evening Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun for over five decades. The older building in our main photograph was the local seat of government, the Town Hall, a sometimes controversial structure that would be knocked down in 1973.
By the start of the 1960s, the required logistics and staff numbers needed for the production of the Chronicle and its sister papers had outgrown the company's long-time Victorian-built headquarters, often referred to as Kemsley House, at the bottom of Westgate Road opposite the Royal Station Hotel. Sadly, Kemsley House, like many other notable old Newcastle buildings at the time would fall victim to the wrecking ball. The accommodation block Vita Student stands on that spot today.
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In an era defined by the rise of "the white heat of technology", a phrase uttered by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, it was fitting that Wilson himself in 1965 should officially open the new state-of-the-art Thomson House. It even had its own attached pub, The Printer's Pie. A commemorative booklet produced at the time declared: “The news of the North and of the whole world pours in night and day. By telephones from our reporter ‘out on a story’ at Consett or Carlisle, Benton or Berwick. By radio from the correspondent in Cairo or Connecticut, Berlin or Bangkok. The pictures, too, flow in. It is all channelled here. The excitement, the urgency never let up.” At the time it was considered one of the most advanced newspaper offices in the world.
A constant hive of activity, millions of newspapers would be produced at the sprawling three-storey building which accommodated around 800 staff at its peak - journalists, printers, advertising, sales, finance, clerical and others. As well as thousands of members of the public, visitors over the years included famous faces from sports, showbusiness and royalty, everyone from Tino Asprilla to Princess Diana, and from Ant and Dec to the Queen Mother.
In February 2018, in response to the rise of digital news provision, and marking the end of an era, ncjMedia made the decision to shift operations in Newcastle to a location better suited to its 21st century business needs. ChroncleLive and our three newspapers - the Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun - are now based in Eldon Court, continuing to serve a loyal audience on Tyneside, and across the wider North East - and beyond.
For the vacated former Thomson House, there was initial talk of new hotels being built at the site - but the potential developers dropped out because of the pandemic and the building is still up for sale.
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