Killingworth - The Towers

The Towers

• The Towers in the 1970s

• The Towers just prior to demolition in 1987 (photo taken by David John Fisher)

• The Towers again just prior to demolition in 1987 (photo taken by David John Fisher)

The most eye-catching and radical aspect of the township was the 3-tier housing estate called the Killingworth Towers – apartment blocks built in the early 1970s. Tenanted by the local authority, they were made of dark grey concrete blocks, and were named Bamburgh, Kielder and Ford Tower etc., after castles. They consisted of a combination of 1, 2 and 3 storey homes built on top of each other rising to 10 storeys high in some towers, with tremendous views. A home video showing the towers is available from YouTube (see External links, below).

The estate was originally designed to mimic a medieval castle with an outer wall and inner keep all interconnected to elevators and garbage chutes by ramps and a two-tier walkway (see gallery). This design could be realized on maps of the Towers which existed on the cast-iron drain covers within the estate. The walkways all led to a ¼ mile long elevated walkway leading straight through the, mostly covered, Killingworth Citadel Shopping Centre. This communal configuration was experimental and somewhat typical of the time.