Morden Tower
| Morden Tower | |
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Morden Tower
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 Morden Tower
 Morden Tower shown within Tyne and Wear |
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| OS grid reference | NZ244640 |
| Coordinates | 54°58′16″N 1°37′14″W / 54.97116°N 1.620618°WCoordinates: 54°58′16″N 1°37′14″W / 54.97116°N 1.620618°W |
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The Morden Tower in Back Stowell Street on the West Walls of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade 1 listed building. For the last 45 years (since June 1964) Connie Pickard has been custodian of Morden Tower, and has made it a key fixture of Newcastle's alternative cultural life. Countless memorable music and poetry events have happened at Morden Tower in that time, which Connie has run largely single-handedly and often out of her own pocket.
The Tower was built about 1290. It is one of five Drum towers that remain of the sixteen that were built on the line of the medieval town wall enclosing the city of Newcastle. The tower and wall were built on ground sloping towards the south, which formed part of the precinct of the Dominican of Black Friary. From the 16th century it had housed the Company of Plumbers, Plasterers and Glaziers.
The Morden Tower has been a major centre for poetry readings in the North East since 1964 when Tom Pickard and Connie Pickard took out the lease. It has developed a national and international reputation for attracting some of the most outstanding UK and American literary figures working during this period. It has been particularly noted for its association with many Beat and Black Mountain poets.
Tom and Connie Pickard were instrumental in bringing about the Newcastle’s Poetry Revival. During this time they amassed a collection of books and pamphlets not obtainable in bookshops at the time. Using the Morden Tower as a venue for poetry readings and a book room they ensured Tower audiences were kept in touch with writing from Edinburgh, Paris, San-Francisco, Greenwich Village, Liverpool and Ladbroke Grove.
During the 60s and 70s the Tower was an inspiration and catalyst for other counter culture ventures, in particular an out post for Alexander Trocchi project among other things.
Basil Bunting gave the first reading of Briggflatts in the Morden Tower, on 22 December 1965. More than any of the host of celebrated poets to have read there, Bunting perhaps embodies the fusion of international modernism with local oral tradition for which Morden Tower readings are noted: the intimate, simple space of the Tower's upper room has been recognised by poets and audience alike as an ideal location for voiced poetry.
‘Morden Tower – simply the most congenial place in the world in which to perform poetry’ Bob Cobbing
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Wikipedia