GRAND DESIGNS Robert Burns Dick (1880-84) was born in 1868. Not many of RGS’s alumni can be said to have changed the face of Newcastle. Adapted by permission of the Chronicle and Journal from an article by Tony Henderson.
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s an architect with grand visions for the city, Dick proposed a gigantic archway to greet people entering Newcastle via the proposed ‘new’ Tyne Bridge, eventually opened in 1929. As a means of entering the city of Newcastle, that now internationally-known symbol of the North East, the Tyne Bridge, could hardly be bettered.
Above: Drawing of the iconic Tyne Bridge towers. Opposite (clockwise): Spanish City, Whitley Bay; Laing Art Gallery; Tyne Bridge and the Bridge Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne
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It was Dick who designed the granite towers of the Tyne Bridge, envisaging a gigantic triumphal entrance arch complex which could have doubled as a civic centre. However, because of financial restraints, it was never built. His inclination towards the monumental is shown in the design of the practice of Cackett, Burns Dick & McKellar for the Portland stone Police Courts and Fire Station which opened in 1933 at the junction of Pilgrim Street and Market Street. Robert Dick was also responsible for the Spanish City in Whitley Bay, which is now enjoying a new lease of life after extensive restoration. Mick Sharp, author of The Dome of Memories, the recent book on the history of the Spanish City,
