Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Bookings are coming along quite nicely

For those who are thinking of staying locally on the evening before the event, here's a snip of available rooms on a well-known room booking site





There's not a whole lot of availability, possibly because South Shields is busy at weekends in the summer

During the research on the filming of the TV advert, we think we may have found where the cobbled street scene might have been filmed.

This is the brief clip





This is Streetview of Hanover Street in Newcastle-upon-Tyne





What do you think ?

A older version of street view might be of more use?
The parallel stone slabs are covering a tram track bed? only one in the add frame, but two in street view?

Judging by the angle of the buildings that looks like a very steep bank, which does suggest a road coming up from a riverside.

In this slightly later shot it looks like there might be a second row of slabs to the left. Covering tram lines is a good suggestion, but, just out of curiosity, could a tram manage a gradient like that?

SteveB wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 10:21 pm Judging by the angle of the buildings that looks like a very steep bank, which does suggest a road coming up from a riverside.

In this slightly later shot it looks like there might be a second row of slabs to the left. Covering tram lines is a good suggestion, but, just out of curiosity, could a tram manage a gradient like that?


Rover 200 ad.jpg

I think the street is almost certainly the one in the advert.

With regards to trams, most tram tracks were either ripped up or buried under tarmac when systems were abandoned.

I don’t know what the gradient is in the photo, but I believe the trams in Sheffield deal with up to 1 in 10.

I didn't think Hanover Street was that steep. Also, it seemed a bit odd to go over to Newcastle just to film a cobbled street when they could probably have found one in South Shields. However... the modern buildings shown on streetview replaced a Victorian bonded warehouse which burnt down around 2006.

A photograph from the Historic England website:

(https://historicengland.org.uk/services ... -tyne-3052)

shows the street as it looked in 1989 (as it happens!). Zooming in to the far end you can see this:
not very clear I'm afraid but it shows the same wall as in the advert. Pretty conclusive I think. Congratulations to whoever found it - of all the cobbled streets in the North East...

This has been posted by Malcolm Andrew Knight on our club's Facebook Group

It is Hanover street. The old warehouses were knocked down a good few years ago and the flats built. It was used in many a Catherine Cookson before the flats were built.

I'd say we've found it !

An interesting photo on the website. What a shame it burnt down. I’m sure it could have been sympathetically restored, but hey ho.

Call me a miserable old cynic ( ), but another convenient fire in a building being eyed up by developers?

GTiJohn wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 10:46 am
I'd say we've found it !

Do I spy the Metro’s Queen Elizabeth Bridge and the King Edward Bridge in the background?

It was a very large, grand old building, built in the 1840s and something of a local landmark.

It had been empty for a number of years and apparently there was talk of restoring it, but given its size and design this would have proved very expensive. The problem was partly solved when it ‘caught’ fire a couple of times in the 90s, as a result of which part of it had to be demolished.

And then, it was such an unlucky building, it ‘caught’ fire again in 2006. This was a major blaze which finally finished it off. There was a lot of speculation at the time (and quite a few cynics!), but I don’t think anything ever came of it.

Still, at least a piece of prime building land became available

And yes, that’s the Metro bridge in the background.