Northampton Greyfriars bus station demolition: 10 years on

BBC News

15-03-2025

Saturday marks 10 years since Northampton's notorious Greyfriars Bus Station was demolished.More than 2,000 explosive charges were needed to bring the building, designed in the "brutalist" architectural style, crashing to the ground.A decade later, the site is still undeveloped and construction work on a regeneration scheme is not due to start until 2028.So what did the site used to look like, and why did it have to change?
What was the old bus station like?
Greyfriars Bus Station was very much a building that divided opinion.It opened 18 months late and well over budget in April 1976 - a massive in-your-face brick-coloured monument to brutalism.The ground floor was dominated from the outside by two gaping voids, framed in grey, lit by largely ineffectual orange lamps, and known as the "mouth of hell".Buses would be swallowed up like live insects as they entered the void, only to be disgorged later as their drivers emerged with blinking eyes into the daylight to begin their next journey to exotic destinations like Lumbertubs or Blacky More.The Beauty of Transport website offers a miserable description of the passenger experience, describing how they were "forced to grope through what can only be described as Stygian darkness to reach their buses".Above the bus station was a pair of three-storey glass-sided trapezoidal lumps which were designed as office blocks, but spent most of their life empty, decaying and unloved.Possibly intended as a distraction from the brutalist rawness of the building, roof gardens were created between the office blocks.
What prompted its demise?
The idea had been that the rental income from the office block would pay for the building, but the demand for that kind of office space, if it ever existed, was clearly diminishing.It took five years to rent the office blocks out, and the first tenant, a Dutch engineering firm relocating from London, was given a five-year rent-free period.As the fifth anniversary of the firm's arrival approached, it announced it was pulling out of the UK.Barclaycard then spent 10 years in the building, but the lights went out for good in 1998.Alongside the struggle getting and keeping tenants, Northampton Borough Council (now defunct) also had to contend with other problems with the building.Everything from lifts breaking down to stalactites forming on the ceilings plagued the Greyfriars complex, and its poor reputation did not help.In 1989, it was named as Britain's third most-hated building in a survey in The Guardian, being cheated of a higher position in the table by Cumbernauld Shopping Centre and the Imax Cinema in Bournemouth.In 2009, the council decided enough was enough and announced plans to create a new bus station elsewhere and redevelop the site.
What happened to the building?
The "mouth of hell" was silenced forever when the last bus left the station on 1 March 2014. Just over a year later, some 2,000 explosive charges were installed in the building, and people in 414 nearby properties were told to evacuate.DSM Demolition pressed the detonation button on 15 March 2015 to send the doomed edifice into oblivion.Work then started removing the debris, which the council said would mostly be recycled.The cost of the demolition was said to be £4m.
What replaced it?
In September 2011, the council announced that Northampton's fish market would be site of a new bus station.Work started on North Gate station in 2013 and the first buses emerged from the facility on Sunday, 2 March, 2014.It did not get off to a particularly positive start, with traffic grinding to a halt in the town centre, buses being cancelled and roads being closed.The whole saga even inspired a song.Some users criticised the smaller size of the site compared to Greyfriars, which meant many services did not stop at North Gate, and many were angered by the decision to charge people for using the toilets.
What is happening at the Greyfriars site?
More than 1,500 people responded to an initial consultation about the future of the 14-acre (56,700 sq metre) Greyfriars site.The resulting blueprint describes its destiny as a "new neighbourhood".It would have a creative hub, showcasing local talent, which might be based in the Corn Exchange building, and a town park.There would be a "playful space" with areas for children and an outdoor gym for adults.There would be a "spectrum" of different types of home, including accommodation for students and "later living" houses for older people.The vision promised "a neighbourhood that is fully stitched into Northampton, accessible by foot, cycle, and better served by buses".
West Northamptonshire Council (the unitary authority that has replaced Northampton Borough Council and the county council) has found a partner to take the project forward - English Cities Fund, which is a joint venture between Legal and General, Homes England and Muse.It may still be some time before work actually starts as a formal agreement will not be signed until the summer.But, after its troubled history, it is hoped a bright future awaits the site to lay the ghost of the mouth of hell to rest forever.
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