The Armstrong Project
What is it?
The Armstrong Project is a bold and exciting initiative to restore Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall in Newcastle upon Tyne and make it accessible to everyone as a place of learning and discovery.
The future Armstrong Centre (working title) will offer multi-disciplinary skills training, as well as exploring the fascinating 19th-century heritage of the North East.
There is an urgent need for action: in 2024 the Hall was listed by The Victorian Society as one of England’s Top Ten Most Endangered Buildings.
The Armstrong Project CIO – set up to oversee the regeneration programme – has won support from the Architectural Heritage Fund to carry out important survey work, with more grant applications in the pipeline.
There are currently six trustees with a range of talents and experience, operating in concert with local organisations such as Armstrong Studio Trust (see below) and The Friends of Jesmond Dene, as well as more widely with The Friends of Czech Heritage, 1st Framework, Trinity Buoy Wharf, Fitzrovia Noir and Venice connections, including the San Isepo boatyard.
Such collaborations add a wealth of knowledge and wide experience to The Armstrong Project.
Impressions of the Armstrong Centre at the Future Engineers show during the 2018 Great Exhibition of the North.
The story of the Banqueting Hall
More than 140 years ago, Sir William and Lady Armstrong gave the Banqueting Hall and Jesmond Dene park, in which it stands, to the people of Newcastle in perpetuity, with the Corporation of Newcastle (now Newcastle City Council) as custodian. The Hall and Park were handed over in a formal ceremony on 20 August 1884 attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.
The Hall had been built to entertain thousands of workers and others linked with Armstrong’s factories at Elswick, while the Park, sited on the other side of the city from the Works, away from industrial noise and pollution, was created to allow them fresh air, recreation and exercise.
Even though it was later used to host clients, friends and visiting dignitaries, Armstrong knew the building could not survive for ever as a banqueting hall. When handing it over to the citizens, he stipulated in his Deeds of Gift that it should be used for activities connected with ‘arts, literature, science or education’.
Armstrong also gave the city four ‘endowment properties’ in Jesmond Dene, the income from which was supposed to go towards the upkeep of the Park and Hall. Of these, only Fisherman’s Lodge (formerly Deep Dene House) is still standing, although it has been badly damaged by fire and left unoccupied for more than a decade.
For the past 40 years, the Hall has been used as studio space by the artists of Armstrong Studio Trust (AST), who have also contributed to its survival by carrying out repairs and maintenance. But parts have suffered from decades of neglect and lack of investment – particularly since the 1970s, when the roof of the main hall was removed by the city council and the building declared ‘a controlled ruin’.
The Gatehouse, or Lodge, designed by Richard Norman Shaw as a welcoming entrance to Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall, is set to become a visitor centre celebrating the history and heritage of this part of Newcastle.
Impressions of Jesmond Dene as it was in 1884, when the Park was formally opened to the public by the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. (Illustrated London News)
First steps
Inspired by the work and achievements of Armstrong Studio Trust, The Armstrong Project CIO intends to bring the Banqueting Hall back to life ‘for the benefit and advancement of public education’, as set out in the constitution of the new charity.
The first steps are to carry out necessary surveys and to commission business and architectural studies to test ideas for the building and to ensure that it has every chance of securing a productive and prosperous future.
We are grateful to the Architectural Heritage Fund for its support, and we are in talks about possible collaborations with Historic England, the National Trust and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, as well as private benefactors. Developments will be reported here as they occur.
Armstrong Studio Trust
Armstrong Studio Trust (AST), an artists’ group, took occupancy of the Banqueting Hall in 1986 and works to support active studio practice in North East England, skills retention and professional development within the Fine Arts.
AST focuses primarily on the production of new and original work based on autonomous material practice, including design, commissions and public exhibitions. Other activities include training and mentoring, education, formal practice-based research, and innovative collaboration with partner organisations, regional, national and international.
Dr Jennie Speirs Grant of AST, a trustee of The Armstrong Project, advocates the hosting in the restored Banqueting Hall of a Northern Drawing School – for, as she points out:. ‘Drawing is transferrable to many different situations as a form of visual thinking, personal expression or professional skill.’
The concept of a Northern Drawing School as a core component of the reincarnated building has the potential to benefit people from all walks of life. The connecting role of drawing across many different disciplines such as arts, science, engineering, design and architecture creates endless opportunities to innovate and explore, formally and informally, and at all levels of ability and for all ages, making it both highly accessible and entirely inclusive.
‘The Cup is Full’ by Armstrong Studio Trust, whose contextual work is informed by the historic and environmental significance of the Banqueting Hall and its intended cultural legacy.
The Friends of Czech Heritage
The Friends of Czech Heritage is a British charity campaigning to raise funds for the repair and conservation of the substantial legacy of historic buildings and their contents, artefacts, gardens and parks in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Republic, situated in the heart of Europe and comprising the historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia, has a cultural legacy of international significance, with 12 UNESCO-listed heritage sites.
This small country has castles that are such a dramatic feature of the landscape, reflecting Bohemia’s power and influence in the Middle Ages, and the largest concentration of great houses and palaces in Europe, built by Renaissance magnates and the wealthy nobility of the Habsburg Empire.
The chair of the Friends of Czech Heritage is the eminent retired architect Peter Jamieson, who is also a trustee of The Armstrong Project. Peter is a member of SPAB (the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) and has masterminded many working parties in the Czech Republic involving initial repairs to neglected historical buildings. Restoration of the former Schindler factory near Brnö is a recent project.
In March 2025 he launched a series of working parties at Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall to clear overgrown vegetation from around the site.
One of the projects completed by the Friends of Czech Heritage.
Venice connections
Connections between North East England and Italy, particularly the ports of Genoa, La Spezia and Venice, date back to the 1860s, when the nascent Italian state drew on English expertise to build a navy to defend its long coastline. The Armstrong Mitchell company on Tyneside was at the forefront of this venture.
San Isepo boatyard
Close to the Arsenale naval base in the Castello district of Venice, the San Isepo boatyard (Squero San Isepo) is now at the centre of a revival of ancient boat-building skills, particularly carpentry and caulking. Boats have been built in this part of the city for more than 700 years.
The regeneration of the historic boatyard – and the intention to open it up to cultural tourism – has much in common with the philosophy driving the Armstrong Project in Newcastle. And the Arsenale is the site of the giant Armstrong Mitchell crane, built by the Tyneside firm in the 1880s for the loading and unloading of ships. The only surviving crane of its type in the world, it is now part of a regeneration project led by the Venice authorities.
Squero San Isepo, whose buildings are in need of major restoration, was saved from demolition and unsympathetic development by Venice’s oldest surviving workers’ guild, the Società di Mutuo Soccorso fra Carpentieri e Calafati, who run an artisan skills programme there.
It is now the only place in Venice where gondolas are still designed and built. The Squero also provides a yacht-repair facility, as well as hosting a Venetian-style rowing school, where traditional Venetian rowing boats are available for hire.
The San Isepo boatyard is the only place in Venice that still designs and builds gondolas from scratch.
Professor Angela Squassina of Iuav University
The emphasis on preserving and reviving artisan skills is a passion of Angela Squassina, a professor of heritage preservation at the Iuav University of Architecture of Venice, who runs courses and seminars about building conservation and traditional craftsmanship, and encourages collaboration between local Venetian craftspeople and university students. A strong supporter of The Armstrong Project, Professor Squassina is a well-known speaker at national and international heritage conventions and has written widely about the preservation of historical surfaces.
GEM awards and Venice in Peril
The GeM awards programme, offering conservation experience in the UK for Italian architects, represents another connection between Venice and The Armstrong Project.
Set up by Peregrine Bryant Architects in memory of Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi, two young Italian architects who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the annual award is administered by Laura Morgante, a conservation architect at Peregrine Grant, and supported by the British charity Venice in Peril. As part of a three-month programme that explores and contrasts the Italian and British approaches to conservation architecture and building, travelling scholars have visited Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall in Newcastle.
Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi, the young Italian architects who perished in the disastrous fire at London’s Grenfell Tower.