IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
New Elvet, DURHAM, DH1 3AL

Looking down past a row of shops towards the junction with Court Lane; on the immediate right is the Durham University branch of HSBC.

Recently completed at the time, and considered to be an important architectural statement at the time. The design was by the Architects Co-Partnership. At the time of posting (2020) the building is under threat of demolition. Increases in student numbers means that it is too small for current purposes, and there seems to be little enthusiasm to adapt it to other purposes.

The light has almost gone at just before 4pm on a December afternoon as traffic pours up and down New Elvet. The photograph was taken from a pedestrian refuge.

Dunelm House opened in 1966 (the year before this photo was taken) and houses the Durham Students' Union. It must then have been one of the largest students' union buildings in the country. Opinions tended to be Marmite-like: you either loved it or hated it. (My own view, for what it is worth, is that it is hardly a thing of beauty, but as brutalist buildings go it is one of the best-designed and interesting of them.) Access from the cathedral and older parts of the university is by the splendid Kingsgate footbridge, seen here high above the River Wear (see also Image). Fifty years later the University sought permission to demolish it, partly because it was too small(!). The debate rumbled on for five years, but in 2021 Dunelm House was listed Grade II and so saved.