The rise and fall of Newcastle's upmarket Eldon Garden shopping mall

Eldon Garden shopping mall, Percy Street, Newcastle, in October 1989, shortly after it opened
-Credit: (Image: Mirrorpix)


It was March 1989, and Newcastle’s shiny, new, aspirational shopping mall, Eldon Garden, was being greeted with a blaze of positive publicity.

‘Fashion and food in a fairytale setting’ was how one newspaper headline described the retail attraction on Percy Street, while another branded it as a ‘new dimension in city centre shopping’. Certainly during the 1990s into the 2000s, business was brisk with discerning Tyneside shoppers drawn to Eldon Garden’s mix of prime brands, boutiques and cafes.

Anyone who has wandered through the mall in recent years, however, will have been struck by the sheer number of empty retail units, and by how eerily deserted the place was, despite it being officially open for business.

Now, according to a recent report in ChronicleLive, the complex has been sold to new owners and there are plans to transform the interior. Temporary hoardings have been erected on the ground floor, meanwhile, closing off the former restaurant and cafe area and the empty shops.

So what went wrong? “Rather than being an exemplar of wider high-street challenges,” says retail consultant Graham Soult, “Eldon Garden’s problem is that it was never really a very successful shopping centre in the first place.”

It’s a far cry from the optimism which surrounded the £15m venture in 1989 as the last decade of the millennium and a brave new retail world beckoned. Built on the site of the demolished Edwardian-era Handyside Arcade (its cast-iron roof trusses would be retained), Eldon Garden was described at the time as a ‘jaw-dropping marbled

Romanesque rotunda, opening on to shops on three levels’. It would be linked to Eldon Square shopping centre by a “spectacular” glass bridge across Percy Street.

Opening on March 25, there would be 40 shops and 11 kiosks trading across 50,000 square feet of floor space. The centre’s manager revealed it would be dominated by specialist shops offering upmarket fashion, accessories and lifestyle goods, and by gourmet cafes and delicatessens.

The Chronicle reported how it would "feature shops and restaurants that have never been seen in Newcastle before - such as Debenhams at Home, Cafe Noir and Club Room". Other notable stores would include Theodore Hamblyn opticians, Solo ladies’ fashions, and Whillian Knitwear of Hawick. It was certainly intended to be a cut above.

There was a central garden area of real flowers and shrubs, giving the place the intended feel of an oasis in the city centre - while on a more practical level, there were 480 parking spaces “in a handsome covered-in garage”. Eldon Garden was even given a royal seal of approval later that year when Princess Margaret officially opened the mall on Friday, November 17, 1989.

Empty retail units in Eldon Garden, Newcastle, in 2018
Empty retail units in Eldon Garden, Newcastle, in 2018 -Credit:Mirrorpix

What could possibly go wrong? Further explaining the decline of Eldon Garden, retail consultant Graham Soult says: “At the time of its development, much was made of the incorporation of the Handyside Arcade roof trusses, yet the new shopping centre managed to jettison much of what had made the old arcade popular – its character, soul, and, crucially, premises that were affordable for local independents.

“To make matters worse, as a high-end shopping centre Eldon Garden was located on the wrong side of traffic-clogged Percy Street, always lacked a proper anchor – Debenhams at Home, then later The Pier, was never a sufficient draw – and as a mall didn’t really lead anywhere useful other than the car park.

“Just a few years after it opened, the ground floor mall was hived off for use as a pub, making the flow between the shopping centre and surrounding areas even less intuitive. Later changes, like the addition of PureGym, made good use of the frontage to Percy Street but turned their back on the internal malls, reinforcing the sense of decline inside.”

And what of the future for the Percy Street complex? Graham says: “As seen by recent openings – such as Søstrene Grene in August, and Sephora and Deichmann in the coming weeks – Newcastle city centre continues to be a highly desirable location for big retailers, as long as the right units are available in the right places.

“Under its new ownership, I expect that Eldon Garden will be keen to retain its successful street-facing businesses, but it seems very unlikely that the internal malls will ever return to the ‘inspirational shopping’ that has been the centre’s unlikely promise until now.

“Instead, other functions – such as leisure, workspace, or perhaps even university accommodation – seem a much more likely way of repurposing underused space in this particular part of the city centre. And if that means the ugly bridge, which sails over the street to connect Eldon Garden to Eldon Square, is surplus to requirements, all the better. Percy Street would be a much more pleasant place with its removal.”